Don't Hate the Game
by YFate
Summary: Playing the game can get you burned. Is she ready for it? SangoXKouga, KagomeXInuyasha
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or the song(s) by Ciara that I have used for this fic. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and inspiration for the first chapter comes from Richonyx's third chapter of "Father Figure".

_A/N - I am doing something I vowed I would never do…well, two somethings…first, I am (gasp) doing a song fic, and secondly, I am using an idea somebody already came up with on a song that they have already used, with the same pairing and AU club setting, if a little shaded to my own world. Richonyx has done an awesome "Goodies" chapter in her fic, "Father Figure" on mediaminer(dot)org. I adore the "Goodies" song and bought the Ciara CD. I have since decided to expand this into a couple of chapters using various songs from the CD. This chapter is ginormous, a lot longer than I expected. I have to warn of lots of foul language, blatant sexual innuendos, trite fluff, gobs of gore and future juice of the lemony kind---where permitted, ff(dot)net will be edited for song lyrics and NC17 content._

_Again, all critiques, comments, and nonsensical mutterings are welcomed. _

_Fate _

SECOND A/N: Just a quick update on ffnet that includes the lyrics for the first chapter. I thought for some weird ass reason that ffnet did not allow song lyrics. My bad. The chapter's complete now. (Fate)

"**Goodies" by Ciara**

**My goodies, my goodies, my goodies, not my goodies…**

Although sound thundered throughout the club, echoing dull throbs to aid the sweaty parody of grinding sex on the dance-floor and filling the popular nightclub with flashing, hot life, the woman sitting alone at a far table ignored it. With her chin propped on one hand, she looked downright bored as the glowing splashes of colored light flickered past her, highlighting the creamy skin with various, unnatural hues and deepening the inky shadow of her long, black hair.

A man, eyes glinting, stopped to check the lone woman out, but wasn't gauche enough to approach when she flicked an eye at him and then deliberately turned her attention away. Shrugging, he went in search of friendlier company. The club was packed, he wasn't that worried about finding someone a bit more receptive. No one as hot, maybe, but what the hell…

Sango rolled her eyes as the man slid past her table, already seeking someone more amenable to his company. She was going to kill Kagome for dragging her to this dump. There were far too many people crowded in too little space for her relative peace of mind. There was too much movement, too much noise, too much going on for to ever feel comfortable with it. The situation posed far too many potentials to turn dangerous.

_I sure hope Kagome knows what she's doing. That hanyou doesn't sound like much more than a spoiled little youkai brat, let alone some kind of protector of miko…_

There was a flicker of movement over on her left, and Sango's bored persona abruptly disappeared as she tensed into automatic defense. A knife appeared from nowhere by her thigh, held in a white-knuckled grip as her dark gaze narrowed on that small, suspicious motion, and she wondered where the hell Kagome was right now. If she had to start tossing knives around in here, she didn't want her best friend to get in the way…

The motion resolved itself into a man ducking under the bar with an empty tray in hand, adroitly edging his way past people just hanging out for no more reason than that they were checking out other dumb asses doing much the same. Sango let out a gusty sigh of impatience as she shrugged tensed shoulders, wanting to laugh at herself. Slipping the knife back into the slim sheath braced to her thigh under the flimsy excuse of a dress Kagome had insisted she wear, the taijiya went back to scanning the club from under seemingly sleepy eyes, thick lashes concealing the impatient glitter in her dark gaze. She had never really been able to conceal her thoughts; it was a weakness to one of her training, but one she had learned to live with. Her father had always laughed that she wore her emotions too much on her sleeve, but he hadn't ever reprimanded her for it.

She missed him, suddenly, fiercely. Missed him enough that her hand went seeking the warm, tepid drink on the table that she hadn't touched before. Taking a healthy sip, Sango made a face as the rampant alcohol burned down her throat to settle uneasily in her empty stomach. Deliberately putting the glass back down on the table, she wondered again where the hell Kagome had got to. In another minute, she'd be getting up to go find her. Kagome often forgot just how vulnerable she was, how tasty a treat to the youkai seeking her.

Damn, this shit was annoying. Her battle-trained nerves were on edge just being this close to so many people and youkai, all mixing together like they hadn't a single care in the world beyond this moment. The flash of fang in a smile or the strange luminescent eyes of a flirting youkai female could still startle Sango each time she saw them among the more human faces in this popular club where they felt free to mingle in a strange city half-way across the world from home, where the mixing of races would have been unheard of…

It was enough to set her teeth on edge.

_Damn it, Kagome. This was all your idea. I told you that stupid dog wouldn't be here tonight, but you insisted on dragging me to this damn meat-market…_

Ignoring another appreciative look sent her way---this time by a youkai with bright blue hair and hideous taste in skin-tight magenta---Sango changed her mind about that drink, brought it to her lips and drank---heartily.

_**I got a sick reputation for handling broads,**_

_**all I need me is a few seconds or more and it's a wrap.**_

_**You can tell the lady to bring my lap and I ain't coming back**_

_**so you can put the car right there.**_

Handing over the keys to his baby with a curled bill worth more than a century, Kouga smirked as the attendant dropped his bored air to bob a bow his way and stutter out some stupid nonsense about how he would take good care of the custom Mercedes.

"Just don't fuck it up." The wolf youkai growled, blue eyes glinting a threat even though he grinned at the valet's anxious nods and reassurances.

Turning his attention from the stupid ingrate, Kouga allowed the catchy music to draw him toward the guarded entrance. The crowds waiting out in front of the club were roughly pushed aside as the youkai sauntered past them, taking the steps two at a time, and ignoring the bulky bouncers guarding the door and their various "Evening, Mr. Yorokuzo."

"Who _is_ that guy?"

His sharp ears twitched at the complaining, impatient voice and he grinned as the irritated girl's cute companion admonished, "Shh! You want us not to get into the hottest club in New Tokyo? That's Yorokuzo Kouga, he owns this place!"

The first girl looked at him with something more appreciative, and Kouga chuckled to himself. Too bad the chick wasn't cute enough to consider getting to know better. There were far too many fish in the sea for him to play with…

And speaking of exotic fish, he might have just found one who would do for the night. He had been feeling a little tense today, having spent way too much time with his accountants, who always insisted on going over every single fucking little thing. A hot little eager fuck might be all he needed to get unwound, and that sweet little honey looked just about right. Kicking curves and wide blue eyes, black hair flowing free and wild down her back, she was sandwiched into a red dress that just emphasized how curvy she really was.

_Wonder why she's hanging around that mutt, though. _

Still, it wouldn't be that much trouble drawing her away from him. Inuyasha was, after all, just a hanyou, and not a full-blooded youkai. Although the dog got plenty of action---women just fell all over themselves to get a tickle on those cute little dog ears. Disgusting, really. Still, Kouga knew that Inuyasha used them damn ears to get at what they both wanted and often competed good-naturedly for---women.

No, it shouldn't be too hard to get that hot little onna away from the stupid dog. He just had to exert a little bit of his famous charm, and she'd be eating right out of his palm…

_**I'm the truth and I ain't got nothing to prove**_

_**and you can ask anybody cause they seen me do it.**_

Inuyasha actually let out a low growl as he approached the pair, hanging out together with drinks in hand. The raven-haired beauty was standing far too close to the hanyou for Kouga to like it much, but his fangs flashed in a smile at the challenge in Inuyasha's belligerent stare.

"Didn't expect to see you here so early, mutt-face." Kouga's smirk grew as those damn ears twitched and the silver-haired hanyou all but glared at him.

His smile was warmer as he turned interested blue eyes on the hottie at the hanyou's side. The girl was small, the top of her head only came to his shoulder. Still, she could do things to a dress that made his blue eyes glint in approval. With a suave move, he took hold of the girl's free hand and turned it over so he could lightly kiss the delicate white wrist, feeling the increased rate of the girl's heartbeat as a pretty blush crept up her cheeks.

"Care to introduce me to your friend?" Kouga's attention was all for the girl, but he raised an eloquent black brow at the hanyou's cranky response.

"No."

_**Barricades, I run right through 'em, I'm used to 'em, **_

_**Throw all the dirt you want, I'm used to it.**_

Wasn't _that_ interesting. Inuyasha was acting almost downright possessive over this little female. The hanyou had even slammed his drink down on the nearest table and would have all but snatched the girl's hand out of the wolf's claws if he hadn't been stopped by Kouga's sly look of smug appraisal.

"Kagome, this ass hole is Kouga." Hardly flattering, but Kouga just smiled into the girl's sapphire eyes, thinking the game might just be getting even more interesting.

"It's a pleasure." He said, kissing her wrist again, wondering how far he might push the issue.

Not far enough, it seemed, because Inuyasha had had enough. With an amber-eyed scowl, the hanyou's claws shot out to grab Kouga's wrist. "You can quit groping the poor girl, wolf-boy." He grit out while slowly twisting the bones together.

_Good grip. _Kouga noted with amusement as he dropped the girl's hand and plucked the hanyou's hold from off his wrist with a good, grinding twist of his own. The girl, pure innocent, just stared at their silent battle of wills with charming confusion in her pretty blue eyes.

Very well. Inuyasha wasn't going to give this one up without a fight. Kouga could certainly understand, the girl was something more than the average, man-panting club-slut. Could be Inuyasha had more interest in her than just a night alone, the way he was acting. Kouga could be gracious, and let dying pigs lie. He knew when he wasn't wanted, and so he bowed his way out with a gracious whisper in the girl's ear that had her giggling as the hanyou's golden eyes flashed.

If looks could kill, he would have dropped dead right then and there.

Chuckling, Kouga went looking for easier game. A firm friendship wasn't worth spoiling over a little piece of ass. Besides, there were plenty here who would be more receptive to his not inconsiderable charms. That girl had barely glanced at him, her attention was all for that damn mutt.

Pity. Would have been fun…

_**Still gonna have a pent up in a fabulous room,**_

_**bone her back picking at a basket of fruit. **_

_**(I love you, boo.)**_

_**Yeah, freaky Petey love you, too.**_

_**Ha, ha, you know how I do it.**_

Seeing he was free, Kouga made his way over to the large, circular bar that divided the lower dance-floor from the upper area of small, intimate tables. Both sides were crowded, with little room to move. To be seen in 'Rave' was to be _known_---something Kouga banked on with outrageous prices, hot music and hotter crowds to draw in the pretentious. It was funny how people seemed to sense him coming, and the way always cleared, no matter how many others jostled closer together.

Turning his head, he grimaced. The woman bearing down on him was forcefully clearing the way with rude shoves and vicious insistence. It figured Ayame would be here, she was always hovering around, always trying to get back with him. He wanted none of it---she had been good for a while, but her grasping, greedy ways had soon palled, though her rather unique talents in the bedroom had made him ignore it for a little while. She was a hot little red-head, but her temper matched that hair, and he had had enough of her bitchy jealousy to last him ten lifetimes. He wasn't about to sacrifice this one.

Giving her a faint nod and a charming smile that had the horny youkai licking her painted red lips---thinking she actually had a chance---Kouga adroitly slipped through a tangle of startled people even Ayame would have trouble getting past. Taking advantage of the confusion as Ayame snarled a protest, he wandered over to the far side of the bar, away from the gyrating dance-floor and into the darkened quiet of the upper deck.

Good gods, that had been _close_.

**You may look at me and think that I'm just a young girl but I'm not**

**Just a young girl, baby, this is what I'm looking for.**

The corner of her lips twitched as Sango watched some thwarted man-hunting redhead snarl as her prey escaped into the cluster crowded around the bar looking out over the dance-floor.

Now _that_ had been funny.

She tried to catch a glimpse of the woman's so-called 'prey', but only caught the flash of a white sports coat and straight black hair swept into a ponytail like she herself preferred. Kept the damn mess out of her face, and it was easy to brush back and be done. She wasn't one to spend much time primping in front of a mirror. Her concession to tonight had been some lip-gloss borrowed from Kagome and a dress she would rather she had _not_ borrowed…

Speaking of Kagome, she finally spied her friend, making a beeline for her table and dragging her own prey after her, one with a strange look on his face. Sango's brown eyes widened as her glance passed over several tell-tale features. Silver hair and yellow-amber eyes, twitching dog ears and an outfit, though rumpled and actually casual for a club like this one, that still oozed _expensive_ in every torn line of leather and denim.

_Huh. Looks like Kags found her hanyou._

Studying him, Sango wasn't that impressed. He looked petulant; put out, even. Kagome was chatting away in his ear (or what she could get at of the twitching white triangle) a mile a minute, and the look of absolute disbelief on his strong, tanned features made Sango sigh. It didn't look like Kagome had done much in convincing him of the _real_ reasons they had come to this sweaty cesspool seeking him out. His reputation must have been worse than even she had thought. Spoiled little rich brat, did it really matter that Kagome's cousin Kikyo had said they could trust him? Kikyo was an odd stick. Sango never could trust the Ice Queen, and hadn't liked taking her advice. But their situation was desperate enough that they were at the point where _anyone_ would have done in a pinch.

Even a belligerent hanyou with a chip on his shoulder, crazy as the thought was.

**I want a sexy independent gotta spend it type that's getting his dough.**

**I'm not being too dramatic that just the way I gotta have it.**

Ayame had succeeded in finally working her way around the crowd overlooking the dance-floor. Catching a flash of angry green eyes and dancing red pigtails, Kouga straightened from the delectable blonde morsel he had charmed into sharing a drink and a table, and made a quick excuse so he could slide away unnoticed. The blonde pouted but pressed a folded napkin into his hand with a hot look of molten promise. Kouga nodded with a slight smile, his mind already thinking of where the hell he could go to escape that red hellion.

Why the hell he was running around his own club like one hunted was just damn ludicrous. But Ayame's grandfather had been good friends with _his_ father, and was still a close business associate. Avoiding her had always seemed the best course in not offending her, or her old man, who he respected---a lot.

The best course would be to find something to make Ayame think twice about her chances with him. Some girl hot enough to give the vain redhead pause. She'd see right through the ploy if it wasn't someone who wasn't even more desirable than she, herself, was. And sad to say, Ayame was one hot youkai piece of ass.

Now, that blue-eyed little angel Kagome might have done the trick. She was definitely in a class far above Ayame's crass charms. But Inuyasha had already staked his claim on that little hottie, and Kouga grimaced as he saw the hanyou actually sitting not too far away, at a table in the back corner, sandwiched between that sexy little kitten and another girl who seemed not so bad herself…

A black brow rose, and a slow smile dawned.

Kagome had a friend? How…convenient.

**I bet you want my body,**

**Bet you thought about it.**

Sango stiffened as a warm hand slid familiarly up her bared back and across her shoulders just as she made to get up from her chair. Blinking in shock, she stared up into a rather innocent looking pair of light blue eyes that glinted with faint amusement at her stunned reaction.

"Leaving me already, koi?" The man---no, youkai---she realized with a chill, was oozing smug assurance of his own handsome appeal. Not that he wasn't giving her pause---the guy could have posed for the cover of _Hot Youkai _with that tall, muscled frame, strong, handsome face and swept-back, silky tangle of black-as-sin hair.

"Darling, you can't leave me. I just got here."

His voice dripped sex. Rough, deep, and throaty. Sango felt a tingle go right to areas she hadn't acknowledged in far too long at that knowing glitter of appreciation in eyes too gorgeous a blue to waste on a mere man.

Or youkai, rather.

Recalled to her senses by that chilling thought, Sango let a deliberate look of distaste flash across her features and plucked his clawed hand---his clawed, warm, firm hand---from off her shoulder.

"Does that cheezy line ever actually work for you?"

**Got you all hot and bothered.**

**Mad 'cause I talk around it.**

Kouga was stunned. Did he just actually hear her right?

No way. She couldn't have just said what he just thought she said.

But Inuyasha's loud guffaw at his expense just told him that he had.

Damn.

Suddenly _quite_ interested, Kouga looked the furious woman over. She was better looking than he had even thought when he spied her across the room. Slender and lithe, rather than curvaceous like Kagome, she still had enough ample charms to make a youkai get whiplash. Her hair hung in a rippling tail down her back, bangs feathering across both cheek and forehead. Her skin was smooth and creamy, her features rather sharp and almost elfin. Dark eyes were framed by thick lashes, luscious lips and a stubborn little chin. She wore her beauty unconsciously, but didn't need to resort to the paint a lot of women used to cover up their blemishes. Her body was something to make his groin tighten. Those legs alone, all ten miles of them, were toned and muscled to perfection, and he could just imagine them circled round his hips as she cried out her writhing pleasure on his black, satin pillows…

She must be used to cheap pick up lines and men falling all over themselves to get at her digits. His approach had been all wrong. She just needed a little coaxing, and his charm was not inconsiderable. With a beneficent smile, he bowed.

"Nice hit, koi. I admit you have won me over…completely. I'm yours. Just tell me what I can do for you…"

With a smile that had made women sigh from here to America, he waited with glinting confidence for her to fall right at his feet.

**If you're looking for the goodies,**

**Keep on looking 'cause they stay in the jar.**

**Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah**

Was the guy for real?

Sango just stared at him in disbelief. But disbelief soon gave way to a growing sense of irritation, which was getting very close to becoming outright pissed-offedness. He fairly oozed youkai arrogance, and she just bet he was expecting her to just fall over for that swill and let him have his way with her.

Which wasn't that bad a thought…gods, he was sexy. He could probably teach her a thing or two to make her toes curl…

What the hell was she thinking? He was a damn youkai. A demon. The _enemy_.

"You can leave."

That was a good come-back to that slimy line of his asking her what she wanted him to do for her. Sango was almost proud of herself for that one.

Kagome giggled, and her hanyou smirked. The dark-haired youkai merely lifted a finely arched brow, his smile slow and sensuous.

"Don't you know who I am, koi?"

**Just because you drive a Benz**

**I'm not going home with you**

Was she supposed to care?

Dumb ass.

Tossing her hair over one shoulder, Sango gave the arrogant youkai a long, languidly assessing look. "Let me guess…a dickhead?"

His smile just widened, the glint in his too-blue eyes suddenly warming into a far-too-interested glitter of amusement.

Shit.

She had just made of herself a game, a hunt, a challenge. And to a _wolf youkai, _no less.

Gods, she could fucking kick herself.

**You won't get no nookie or the cookies**

**I'm no rookie**

**If you ain't sexy, independent, I ain't with it.**

**So you already know**

Gods, she was good. And hot. _Damn_ hot. She knew just how to play him, how to get his wolfish instincts all perked up and howling. So she liked the chase, well, so did he. He didn't mind obliging her, if that was what she wanted. It was all a game, to all of them. There was no woman alive who could possibly ever say no to him. Not him, Kouga of the Wolf Demon Tribe, youkai, playboy, and all but royalty.

She messed with fire, that one. She just didn't know close she was to getting burned…but in a good way. He could make her burn for him, make her scream for release when and wherever she wanted, and for how long he could keep it kindled, which was a long time indeed.

"Koi, how can you wound me like that? I don't even know your name." He allowed a little bit of hurt to creep into that plea. She saw right through it, but her friend didn't, the sweet-faced little angel. Pure innocent, that one.

"He's got a point, Sango." Kagome was giggling at the girl's glare, which was now aimed at both of them.

"Sango…" Kouga allowed her name to drawl out into a velvety growl, liking the allure of it. There was a long, inky strand of hair that had escaped her high ponytail to lie curling across her shoulder and breast. He picked it up with a delicate claw and sniffed lightly, the blue intensity of his eyes darkening with desire for her benefit alone as she stared up at him in surprise.

Surprise turned to a hard look, and she slapped his hand away with a sharp, defiant motion that had his youki flaring in snarling reaction. His instincts said to take her now, make her and mark her and show her just who was boss…

Kouga quickly reined in the more basic urges of his youkai nature, though his slow, toothy smile was pure predator.

Gods, she was _good_.

**I'm not being too dramatic**

**That's just the way I gotta have it.**

Sango wanted to howl. That damn youkai was all but oozing sexual appeal from every damn pore of him, his youki darkening around him as those blue eyes took on a hint of the wild and untamed. Civilization was often only a thin veneer easily discarded by the true youkai.

And, gods above and below, she was actually even responding to it, in a basic, earthy way. Now, when she didn't need it, or the complications of it, her hormones were finally starting to kick in. And not for some handsome man of her own species, but for a damn youkai with black hair and wicked blue eyes. Her body, often a mere instrument for her use, like any other weapon, was damn near betraying her by those hot, giddy feelings that stirred in her belly in answer to that blatant look he was giving her. She could almost see herself under him, clinging and crying out as he caught her, took her, filled her…

Fuck that.

She wasn't some damn idiot to just get involved with a youkai without thought to what the consequences just might be. She was a taijiya, damn it. If that wolf knew, he'd kill first and ask questions after, when it really didn't matter. If he learned about Kagome, or their plight, or any of the other crap they were doing a pretty stupid job at hiding, he would go utterly ballistic…

**You may talk slick, try to hit, but I'm not dumb**

**I'm not being too dramatic it's just how I gotta have it.**

Kouga saw his chance the moment Ayame finally came sniffing near. Inuyasha got a rather pained look on his face, warning Kouga just before that whiny, strident voice came smacking him in the back of the head.

"Kouga! What the hell are you doing with that onna?"

The reaction of the two women rather surprised him. Instead of looking shocked, dismayed or even pissed off---any of which Kouga would have expected---one of them looked downright frightened, the other suddenly wary. Kagome looked like she wanted to slide down under the table, and that little tease Sango went from impudent to imprudent, the flash in her dark eyes telling him that she wasn't about to have Ayame come over and railroad them. The little onna, feisty and sexy as that was, still couldn't know what she was tangling with. Ayame could shred her with one deadly flick of those sharp, painted claws.

Which wasn't in Kouga's particular plans for the hot little onna. He planned to shred something other than her skin with his own claws. Like that sexy little strap on her short, black dress that kept slipping just that little bit from off of her creamy little shoulder…

Ever open to opportunity, Kouga seized the girl's distraction, and grabbed her small hand in a viselike grip she couldn't hope to release no matter how she struggled and jerked. He hauled her after him with a casual, "Care to dance?"

**I bet you want the goodies,**

**Bet you thought about it.**

"Kagome…"

The girl was straining to look over her shoulder, back at her friend. Kouga grinned, seeing the hanyou already herding the other girl away from Ayame to the other side of the bar. "Don't worry, koi. The hanyou can take care of her. I'm more worried about _you_."

"What?" She actually ceased her silent struggles to turn a glare on him. Damn, she was feisty.

"You don't want to mess with that youkai, Ayame." He said with a sexy grin.

She surprised him again. "Damn straight. She might recognize---"

She cut herself off abruptly, looking at him with a narrowed gaze.

Kouga dragged her down the stairs so quickly that she stumbled against him. He grinned at her furious look as he took the opportunity to haul her next to his side. The beat started picking up as bodies convulsed around them. Shoving his way through the mix of sweating anonymous lit by the glowing dazzle of myriad lights, Kouga nodded once or twice to muffled hails sent his way. Turning his wicked blue eyes on the sexy little onna, he murmured encouragement in her ear as he twisted her around and all but ground his hips into hers, his hands sliding down that smooth back to the luscious curve of her flaring hips so he could sway her closer and show her by example just how damn good he was…

**Got you all hot and bothered.**

**Mad 'cause I talk around it.**

Sango stiffened as she felt him enfold her in all of his gloriously male strength. Gods, it was hot. _He_ was hot. He surrounded her in hard heat that she could just melt against. She nearly moaned as her body quivered in reaction to the slow grind of his hips into hers. The beat throbbed just as he hauled her tight against him, so that she could feel every evidence of his desire for her through the tight black leather of his pants. His hands, strong, broad, claws lightly caressing through the thin material of her skimpy excuse for a dress, curved possessively over her hips. He used the momentum of the music to haul her closer, nudging her thighs apart so that she straddled one hard, leather-clad leg. As the beat rose and thundered with wicked abandon, he dipped and rocked her in a motion that made the breath catch in her throat. Holy shit, he was good.

_Too_ good.

With an abrupt movement, Sango jerked free, sliding out from his hold by the pure surprise of it. She whirled, seeking a way off of the crowded dance floor and away from _him_. He was messing too much with her mind, which she needed to keep clear and focused on the task at hand. He was somehow fucking with her head, and that was the last damn thing she needed right now.

Turning her head sharply to the right, her eyes widened as she made out a dim shape maneuvering along the shadowed fringe of the crowded dance-floor. A flash of white and green light flickered past the area, and she saw them edging their way closer, their eyes scanning the jostling bodies, seeking, ever seeking.

Shit.

_Kagome!_

Sango whirled, wanting to find her friend, get the hell out of here, and flee as fast and as far as she could manage from the danger that was even now circling around the club like a school of hungry piranha. How the hell had they tracked them here? Their whereabouts were supposed to be a closely guarded secret, though that cold bitch Kikyo could have betrayed them. She had always been jealous of Kagome's burgeoning powers…

She hissed as a pair of clawed hands slid over her hips from behind. A hot breath whispered sexily into her ear as he hauled her back to him with coy strength, "Darling, you can't be leaving me now. I'm not done with you yet."

Was he fucking serious? Their enemies were closing in around them, and he wanted to _dance?_

Gods, he was infuriating!

**If you're looking for the goodies,**

**Keep on looking 'cause they stay in the jar.**

**Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah**

A sensuous smile curved across his firm lips as she all but growled at him. Damn, was she sexy. She didn't even know, bless her sweet little innocent self. Her sweet little innocent _sexy_ self.

Damn, he wanted her. Bad.

It was just a matter of time before she gave it up to him. She had already responded to him, albeit reluctantly. But that hot little body had a mind of its own, and if he played his cards right, he could work it so that she couldn't help but burn for him as much as he was burning for her…

The music swelled and dipped, and he used the rhythm to nestle her sexy little ass back into his grinding hips. He could feel the breath expel from her in a gasp, and the sensual awareness unfurled again between them. Her heart was racing, and she made a small sound of half-hearted protest as his claws smoothed over the silky fabric of her tight little dress in a sensuous, nerve-heightening motion, moving inward over her flat belly before curving back down in a thigh-skimming caress of pure, erotic naughtiness.

He tilted her backwards a bit, making her momentarily lose her balance and fall back into his curving hips as his claws all but caressed the upper inside of her muscular thighs, snagging on the high hem of her flaring skirt and hauling it up a few inches as he ground into her. He smelled her arousal; she wasn't as immune to him as she wanted to pretend. The hot little bitch wanted him, all right, and he was going to show…

_What the hell?_

They both stiffened as his wandering fingers bumped against something strapped tightly to her thigh. She hissed out a curse that made him grin even as his blue eyes narrowed dangerously. Plucking the hidden knife free with a deft twist of his claws, he abruptly spun her about in a dizzying turn to confront her with the evidence of her treachery, wanting answers, and _now_.

What the hell was she doing bringing an illegal weapon into _his_ nightclub, and why the hell was she staring wildly around her like someone was after her sweet little ass? Turning his head sharply to the right, he saw them then.

Youkai---and ones not particularly interested in wanting to dance. They were shoving their way through the crowded dance-floor, their reddening eyes focused on the little onna he held by one wrist. A sharp look in her direction showed the whites of her eyes flashing as the breath heaved in and out of her in sharp gasps. Fear, and anger, were mingled in her tantalizing scent, and Kouga growled as the encroaching youkai closed in on them.

He didn't blame them for wanting a piece of the hot little onna, but he didn't think it was for the same reasons that _he_ wanted her for. Not by a long shot.

Abruptly, the onna twisted out of his loosened grip on her wrist with a complicated move that looked far too effortless for his tastes. He suddenly found himself empty-handed as she retrieved her knife with an ease that had him staring in astonishment as she ducked past him and slipped into the crowd.

If she hoped to outrun those damn youkai, she was a fool. They were arrowing in on her, even as she wormed her way past gyrating dancers who couldn't possibly understand just what was going on. With a growl, Kouga followed the beautiful little twit, jerking his head at Hakkaku and Ginta, two of his bouncers, to follow after him. He was damned if he was about to have an all-out brawl in _his_ club, and he was damned if he was about to let that hot little onna get away before giving him a damn good explanation and a damn good reason to…

_**So damn hot but so young,**_

_**You ain't got milk in your tongue, slow down little one.**_

_**You ain't got it all, hey shorty, you don't play the game.**_

Sango jerked sideways, avoiding the sudden lurch of a dancing couple by mere inches as she ducked past. She slipped by another girl, who stared at her in bewilderment as the flashing lights glittered on the sharp steel of her bared blade. Cursing under her breath, Sango all but bent over double and ran, the knife held tight to her chest, and skipped toward the back exits on the opposite side of the crowded floor. She hoped to lure the hunting youkai as far from Kagome as possible. Gods' grant, that spoiled little hanyou might prove to be of some worth and herd the young miko away from trouble. It was a flimsy hope at best. Kagome might insist on coming to Sango's aid, and that was the last damn thing she wanted.

Her best bet lay in luring the hunters back outside the club, where she might be able to face them in the deserted alley that ran along the back end of the closely-built structures. She had scoped out the area earlier in the day, when she had first learned of Kagome's desperate plan to come to this damn club hunting out that stupid hanyou. Now, _they _were the ones being hunted, and Sango didn't think all that highly of her chances.

Damn it, but this situation sucked.

A flash of dull metal to her right had her ducking just in time as a clawed, brass-knuckled fist swung for her head. Without wasting a breath on the preliminaries, Sango slashed with her knife, though she only nicked the pink-haired youkai. Green eyes glittered at her in smirking malice as he swung at her shoulder, hoping to dislocate her knife hand, or at least stun her arm long enough to drop the meager weapon.

Or maybe he just hoped to distract her.

Sango avoided the sharp claws reaching for her by mere inches and merest chance. Whirling, her leg shot out, taking out a kneecap as she used the momentum to jump off the second assailant and twist away from the first, who was now swinging for her head. There wasn't much room to work with in the crowded confines of the club, and she dove beneath a startled bystander as the second youkai howled out in pain and stumbled to the floor.

Three more youkai were forcing their way toward her precarious position, and Sango, seeing the odds, turned and fled, pushing past an incredulous couple and diving under the brace-legged bouncer who guarded the back door. Shoving her shoulder into the heavy door, she was through was a grunt and a slam as the door whipped back against the chipped brick of the nightclub's rear wall. The alley was black as pitch, a few dim lights up above doing little to penetrate the inky darkness.

The night air was bitch-frigid cold, and she felt a chill that raised goose-bumps on her bared arms. The door slowly swung back on its hinges. The bouncer, a thick meathead of a man, stopped it from closing with a raised hand and yelled something at her, something she couldn't understand over the thundering music that swelled out into the chilly night.

She saw the poor lug's eyes widen as he saw something just beyond her. Sango ducked just in time, as a heavy fist came out of the darkness to punch across the bouncer's cheek, crunching through bone and caving in his jaw. He crumpled to the ground with a gurgling moan, the blood seeping in a pool beneath his face. Sango dove again as another figure lurched out of the dark, twin knives glittering in the flashing light coming from the opened door. Someone screamed inside the club, noticing the fallen bouncer maybe, or somehow getting in the way of one of the other youkai now jumping over the bouncer's prone body to come after the fleeing taijiya.

Sango cursed, seeing the two who now faced her, eyes red and fangs flashing with smiles of pure malice.

She was fucked.

_**You may be bad but you ain't bad.**_

_**I'll show you what bad is.**_

The fuck had better be worth it.

Kouga frowned with impatient disgust as he saw her dive beneath a calculated swing for her shoulder. He grinned in admiration as he saw the capable little onna kick out at her attacker, avoiding the second one. Forcefully pushing his way through the surprised sheep who danced on, oblivious to what was happening only a few feet away from them, he won free just as the girl dove for the back door.

The youkai who she had just kicked the shit out of stumbled to his knees, howling as his shattered knee-cap hit the floor. A woman cried out in surprise as he swung blindly in her direction, trying to use her as a crutch in order to get back on his feet. The first guy, brass-knuckles glinting on his curled fist, was already diving for the door, where his bouncer was already laid out like a damn door-stop.

Stepping up behind the kneeling youkai, Kouga laid him out with a deft jab to the back of the head. Eyes rolling up, the youkai hit the floor with a dull thud. Someone screamed behind him, and others were finally noticing that something was wrong. Hakkaku shouted out something behind him, but Kouga was too intent on going after the other three ass holes who were slipping through the door after the disappearing onna.

He got two of them at the door, using the old head-meets-head trick of knocking them both out at the same time. Reaching out, he grabbed both of the hairy fuckers by their long scalps and simply clunked their thick skulls together. They crumpled across the prone bouncer's legs. The bouncer groaned, showing that at least the useless dumb ass wasn't dead---yet. Kouga intended on having quite a few words with him when this fucking fiasco was all over…

_**Bad is when you're capable of beating the bag.**_

****They made it almost too easy for him to take them all out. Not that the cute little onna didn't put up quite a fight---but she was outnumbered, and she was bleeding from a few minor wounds by the time he finally got outside. Surveying the inequitable situation with a cool blue gaze, Kouga grabbed the nearest one by the back of the neck and squeezed, claws digging. The youkai dropped his dagger to claw at the death-grip on his throat with hard desperation as he all but choked.

Seeing as how the others were intent on killing the young woman without a fair fight, Kouga felt no particular compunctions about showing any of them undue mercy. With a deft twist, he snapped the gasping youkai's neck and threw away the lifeless corpse. For the first time, real anger was beginning to burn hot within him, and he let it free. Eyes glowing crimson promise, he snarled, his youki swirling through him, lengthening both fang and claw as he jumped on the next victim with no weapons needed past his bare hands.

_**I've been working at it ever since I came to this planet.**_

_**I ain't quite there yet, but I'm getting better at it.**_

It was pathetic, really. They were no match for a daiyoukai of his strength and ability. He'd been fighting for years, these little whelps were as nothing compared to _him_.

Kouga smiled, fangs glinting in the dazzling technicolored display that flashed and flickered across the darkness of the back alley from the opened door. He reached for the nearest attacker, and grunted as the pink-haired youkai's brass-knuckled fist landed in his gut. With almost casual ease, Kouga drew a sharp claw across the struggling youkai's throat, ending the struggle before it had even begun.

The girl was doing her best to hold three of the attackers at bay. They circled her warily, one limping slightly from an opened wound on his thigh inflicted by her knife. The tallest one, his hair almost ghost-grey and worn in a single, long braid down his back, was waving a pair of wicked daggers about, feinting first one way and then the next. The other two were bare-handed, though one was pulling a needle-thin stiletto from his boot as the girl did an incredible kick in his direction, her foot connecting solidly with his bent head. The youkai let out an odd cry, and fell over, clutching his throbbing noggin in both hands.

Using their distraction, the girl darted in to thrust her own knife at the second, unarmed youkai. He casually backhanded her to the hard street even as her arm whipped out, opening his guts to the elements with an upward, slicing motion. Too bad her knife got caught on his ribs; as he jerked away from her in surprise at the sudden, sharp pain, he took her weapon with him as he toppled over backwards.

"You're going to die for that, you fucking bitch!" The last youkai hissed, flipping his right-hand dagger into a points-down position. The girl sprawled awkwardly against the far wall, her back to the dusty brick, her hair a dark tangle down her back and shoulders as the spent breath heaved out of her in harsh gasps. She tried to struggle back up to her feet, where she might face the offensive ass hole from a better position than lying there like a meek lamb for the slaughter, but her seemingly inexhaustible energy had reached its limit.

"Looking for someone?" Kouga asked, his grin feral as he casually yanked on the long braid of ghost-grey hair that hung down the youkai's back.

"What the f---" The youkai's surprise was cut off as Kouga dragged him back long enough to get a good grip on the taunting youkai's neck. The youkai choked on his surprise, and tried to swipe futilely at the ookami who held him in a tight death-grip. With contemptuous disdain, Kouga swung the feeble fucker into the unyielding brick wall, crushing his head like a fat grape as head met wall in a final, decisive confrontation.

The wall, of course, won.

Letting the mangled corpse drop, it left bloody streaks along the wall as it slowly slid down. Kouga bent over the huddled girl. Her head was bowed as the harsh, panting breaths of exertion slowed slightly. That delightfully naughty little strap had worked its way back down her creamy shoulder, and Kouga, feeling the blood-anger of battle draining out of him as his powerful youki slowly withdrew, touched her shoulder briefly with a solicitous claw.

"Darling, are you all ri---"

He sucked in his gut as he felt a razor-sharp tip pointedly press against the dark blue silk of his rumpled shirt. He stared down at the girl in astonishment. Her eyes glittered up at him, the small knife that had suddenly appeared in her hand held steady against the flat planes of his stomach with sharp emphasis.

"Back off, _youkai_." She hissed the insult, dark eyes flashing.

Gods, she was hot.

_**Matter of fact, let me tell it to you once more again,**_

_**All I got to do is tell a girl who I am.**_

_**Ain't nare chick in here that I can't have,**_

_**Bada boom bada bam bam bam.**_

"Koi---" Kouga protested, hands spread wide to placate the touchy female.

_"Now, _ass hole." She all but snarled, the point biting deeper, deliberately scratching a small tear in the silk of his collared shirt. Kouga went, though his narrowed blue eyes misted slightly crimson with anger.

"You play a dangerous game, darling." He told her in a flat voice, void of any emotion.

She should have seen the danger signs.

"Whatever, playa." She grunted slightly as she lurched to her feet, the sharp knife still held steady in her palm even as she kicked off her single remaining heel with disgust. Standing in her bare feet, she was still a beautiful sight to behold. Her short, flaring skirt had been torn up along one side, almost to her hip, and the exposed skin was smooth and creamy. Both thin straps had slid down off her shoulders, giving a good, long glimpse of the heaving tops of her full breasts. Her hair had fallen from her high ponytail to spill over her shoulders and back in long, inky tangles.

"I gotta go. Been real, youkai." She slowly edged her way down the alley, hissing as she put weight on her left ankle. It was swollen slightly, a trickle of blood seeping down her exposed hip. Kouga didn't like the sharp tang of her blood that hung in the air. She was bleeding more than she perhaps realized, or she was just too stubborn to care.

Hearing a startled gasp behind him, Kouga ignored those two damn twits, Hakkaku and Ginta, to cautiously follow her retreat.

She glared at him, stumbling slightly as her attention wavered before catching herself and leaning on her right leg to take weight off of the injured one.

Kouga grinned.

"You can't be leaving now, koi. What's between us ain't half done yet."

**You're insinuating that I'm hot,**

**But these goodies, boy, are not**

**Just for any of the many men**

**That's trying to get on top.**

Sango wanted to punch him. Her fingers even curled slightly, her fist just itching for the chance.

_Arrogant jerk._ _'Ain't half _done_ yet?' What kind of shit is that?_

She was done, all right---past done. You could stick a fork in her, she was so damn done.

Ignoring the youkai and his too-blue stare, she tested her ankle. What a mess. _She_ was a mess. She didn't think a taxi would be willing to stop for her, messed up as she was, and if she didn't get to it, she'd be standing here all night---or until that ookami got over himself and summoned the authorities. How he was going to explain seven---no, eight, for even as she blinked in stupid astonishment, that crazy wolf Kouga casually stepped on the last moaning youkai's neck---the one she had taken out with a sharp kick to the head---and crushed his windpipe with casual disdain and little remorse.

It filled her with icy reminders of just how deliberately cold and brutal a youkai could be. No matter what interest he had in her, she had to get out of here, _now_.

Turning, Sango almost screamed as a pair of strong claws wrapped over her upper arms. The knife flashed in her hand, held low against the youkai's groin with implied consequence as she growled a low warning.

"Damn it, wench! You cut _that_ off and I'll beat the shit out of you!"

"Inuyasha!"

Kagome stood, hands on her hips and indignation in her blue eyes. She looked a little windblown, but no worse for wear. Her skimpy red dress had been covered with the hanyou's leather jacket, which swam on the miko's slighter frame.

"Let go of me, hanyou." Sango hissed, brown eyes narrowed as she pressed the knife the teeniest bit in annoyance. The hanyou released her with a growl and a grimace.

"Sango! What happened to your shoes?" Kagome, of course, was oblivious to the fact that they were surrounded by five dead bodies and two pissed off demons.

Sango shrugged awkwardly, her eyes darting from silver-haired hanyou to black-haired ookami, who had stalked over to stand next to his friend, arms crossed and look one of cool calculation.

**No you can't call me later,**

**And I don't want your number.**

While they had all sat there looking at each other like dumb asses, two other wolf youkai---one grey, the other sporting a white mohawk---had simply shoved the bodies out the back door like it was trash day. A fourth now appeared to grab the wounded bouncer by his thick legs and drag him back inside the club. Sango wondered just what the hell they were going to tell the customers. It was a hysterically stupid thought, and she needed to get her shit together and get the hell out of here.

"Kagome, let's go." She murmured urgently, taking a step back from the formidable pair who stared at her.

"We can't leave, Sango." Kagome argued, though she followed the taijiya reluctantly, used to following Sango's terse orders. They had saved her ass more than once in the past.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Inuyasha was more blunt than his urbane friend.

"Oh, that's right. I have your jacket." Kagome struggled to remove it, while the hanyou gave her a rather stupefied glance, a feeling Sango was all too familiar with when dealing with the young miko.

"Forget the fucking jacket." Inuyasha all but snarled. "We want answers, damn it. You two have a lot of explaining to do."

Sango stiffened.

"I already told you…" Kagome started, but Sango grabbed her wrist with hard emphasis to shut the hell up. Kagome did, though she gave the taijiya a hurt look.

"C'mon, Kags." She lurched back another step, almost slipping on something wet and sticky she didn't want to examine that closely.

"You're leaving? Without so much as a 'thank you'? Kouga, here, just saved your ass, girl." The hanyou's golden glare was fierce.

"Thanks." Sango's reply was caustic, though she did mean it. She just had to get the hell out of here before they summoned whatever passed for police in this wretched city. Kagome should never have started them down this wild goose chase. Naraku's flunkies now knew where they were. They had to make tracks out of New Tokyo as fast as they could. She had a few c-notes back at the apartment. It might be enough to get them a train ride out to the next burgh, where they could lie low while she somehow made contact with their associates. Though she might not want to risk it; she had no way of knowing just who it was who had betrayed them to the dark oni…

That thought in mind, Sango started edging back away from the so-called scene of the crime, dragging a reluctant Kagome with her.

**I'm not changing stories**

**Just respect the play I'm callin'!**

"What'll we do with these, boss?" Hakkaku asked with a gravelly voice, casually kicking one of the prone bodies at his feet. He looked curiously at the two girls who were gingerly backing away, but made no comment.

"Incinerator." Kouga growled back, more sharply than he intended. Hakkaku scrambled to obey, Ginta looking over his shoulder as he started dragging bodies toward the cellar door that lay a couple yards past the rear door, which was now solidly closed against the curious.

Kouga was pissed. Those two trouble-makers come into his club, start all this shit, and have the fucking gall to leave without so much as a single thank you? They sure had balls.

"You can stop right there, darling." His blue eyes glinted as he stalked forward, just itching to get his claws on the sarcastic little onna for something other than what he had originally intended. "You have quite a bit still to explain here."

"We're done, youkai." The girl bit out as she hobbled back another step. Her voice was strained, even as she yanked on her reluctant friend to get her going. The metallic scent of her blood rose sharply.

"Sango! You're hurt!" Took her friend long enough to realize that fact. Seemed like the sweet-faced angel was a little slow on the uptake.

_"C'mon, _Kagome." The other girl, Sango, was too desperate. She was trying to hang on to reality by stubborn will alone. Kouga had to respect that, even as he waited for the inevitable. She was only human, after all.

Lurching two more steps, seeping blood and pure exhaustion finally overcame the stubborn chit, and she fell flat on her face in a dead faint.

Or she would have fallen flat on her face, if Kouga wasn't suddenly there to catch her. He braced his weight as she slumped against him, his arms supporting her crumpled frame as her friend let out a dismayed cry. Inuyasha was tugging on Kagome's sleeve as Kouga swept the wounded girl up into his arms. She was lighter than he expected. He grinned down at her. Fate never failed him.

"I told you we weren't done yet, koi."

With a jerk of his head, he led the hanyou and the anxious girl back out along the alley, the girl cradled tightly in his arms.

**I bet you want the goodies,**

**Bet you thought about it.**

**Got you all hot and bothered.**

**Mad 'cause I talk around it.**

**If you're looking for the goodies,**

**Keep on looking 'cause they stay in the jar.**

**Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah**

Kagome hurried to catch up with the handsome youkai who carried her dearest friend like a limp, rag doll. He stalked down the alley like he owned it. For all she knew, he might very well own it. She felt at a loss. Sango was usually the one in charge, the one to make the decisions for both of them. Kagome hadn't ever seen Sango really hurt before. Wounded, yes, but nothing like this. Even during that bloody, terror-filled night, when they had fled the massacres of Kyoto as Naraku's forces roused the youkai population to rebel against their ancestral human masters, Sango had been there, vitally alive and protecting her as they fled in secrecy from the bloody chaos behind them.

The silver-haired hanyou kept pace with her, hovering over her with a protective air that made her want to smile, even with all the worries that were now knotting her belly with uneasy disquiet. Kagome was surprised by just how much he affected her. Risking a glance out of the corner of her eye, she saw he was looking at her too, his amber gaze thoughtful. She could easily lose herself in those beautiful, darkly golden eyes of his. Flushing with the thought, she almost tripped over her awkwardly high heels. Inuyasha reached out a clawed hand to steady her, and Kagome smiled gratefully at him, pulling his leather jacket tighter around her thin shoulders, loving the smell of it. It smelled just like him: masculine, leather, and some expensive after-shave she couldn't quite put a name to.

The black-haired wolf youkai had stopped abruptly at the end of the alley, where it let out onto a deserted side street. Turning his head, he growled, "What'd you ride in on?"

"My bike, of course." Inuyasha smirked.

"Figures, mutt-face." The other one---Kouga---turned his head to holler back at his friends or employees or whatever they were, "Ginta! Hakkaku! Get the car!"

There was a faint "Sure, boss!" on the slight breeze, and they all waited in tense silence as the two wolf youkai scrambled to obey. There was the sound of a door slamming, and the faint, low hum as a machine---incinerator?---started up. Kagome shivered, huddling into the illusion of security the large, leather jacket provided. She felt a strong arm curl over her waist, and she snuggled into the comforting embrace. A long, silver hair tickled her nose, and she couldn't quite understand why it was she trusted the hanyou stranger so much.

But she had come to New Tokyo seeking him out, and maybe she had built him up to something he wasn't in her idle, dreamy mind, but she trusted him like she didn't trust anyone, except Sango. Though Sango would have argued with her about it. The taijiya would have insisted that Kagome gave her trust too easily, that she was too ready to believe in people who were more prone to turn on you and break that trust. But then, Sango had been made hard and suspicious by bitter experience. She wasn't the carefree, confident girl she had been, the one with the ready laugh and the easy smile that could light up her beautiful brown eyes to a pretty cinnamon hue. Sango's whole family had been slaughtered by Naraku, long before that dark night of terror when the oni had consolidated his hold on the city, and sent the youkai into a frenzy of bloody retribution on the humans who had once ruled over them…

A car suddenly screeched to a halt right in front of them, and Kagome shied away as a dark-haired youkai jumped out of the driver's seat. But he wasn't one of the ones she might recognize as Naraku's minions, but another wolf youkai who waved at his 'boss' before high-tailing it back around the building without saying a word.

"Good, those fucktards know how to keep quiet."

Kouga growled, but was too busy trying to shift Sango in his arms so that he could get the rear door opened to make a reply. Inuyasha gave Kagome a quick, reassuring squeeze before he left her to helpfully open the door for the encumbered wolf.

"Want me to drive?" The question was casual, but the glint in the hanyou's amber eyes was pure smirk.

"Fuck my baby up, dog-breath, and I'll kill you," came the muffled retort as Kouga ducked inside the back seat of the expensive Benz. Inuyasha closed the car door with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." The hanyou muttered as he stepped over to the driver's side door. He raised a brow at Kagome, who hesitated briefly before trotting over to the passenger door. Sliding in, the hanyou leaned over to open her door so that she could climb inside.

The car oozed money. Kagome gingerly sat on the expensive leather, wondering at the warmth that came up from the cushiony seat. Primly snapping her seat belt closed, she relaxed into the comfort of it before looking curiously at the hanyou beside her, trusting him to take care of things.

"Where to, wolfy?" Inuyasha inquired of the rear-view mirror.

"The Towers," came the impatient reply. "It should be safe enough there."

Kagome's eyes widened. The Towers? Naraku's minions would never think to look for her and Sango _there_. Nobody _they_ knew could ever afford to live in that exclusive complex of ultra-cool condos. She had seen them featured in _'Housekeeping Today'_ back when she had had time to spare for such things as idle boredom. It had been one of her mother's favorite magazines, and Kagome felt a sudden rush of intense sorrow for the stupid memory. She furiously blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. Gods, she was stupid. Here she was, sniffling over some stupid magazine subscription her mom had once had, and her best friend was lying near death in the back seat of a strange youkai's tricked-out Mercedes in a strange city she would never in the world have expected to ever visit, sitting beside a strange hanyou with silver hair and the most adorable little dog ears she had ever seen, and…

A clawed hand reached out and awkwardly patted her on one bent knee. Kagome looked up at him, and he cocked a half-grin at her, trying to make her smile. She did, to reassure him, and he briefly squeezed her knee before gripping the oddly-shaped steering wheel. The streets were going by in a shadowy blur of streaking lights that should have alarmed her, but Kagome was suddenly too tired to care.

She glanced back over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of her friend in the back seat. The interior was dim, but the ookami's light blue eyes were faintly luminescent. He stared coolly back at her, the taijiya cradled against him. Sango looked so small and fragile held in those strong arms. Her hair was an inky tangle over his arm, her short dress riding up high along her bent legs.

"Is…is she okay?" Kagome hesitantly asked, worried over Sango's continued somnolence.

"She'll do." The ookami growled back. "Can't you drive any faster, dog-boy? My grandmother could shuffle faster than _this_."

Inuyasha merely grunted, but suddenly made a turn so sharp and wide Kagome had to grab on to the door handle or pitch forward against the constrictive seat belt.

"Watch it, ass hole!" Kouga easily shifted on the back seat, holding Sango tightly against him so he would not jar any of her injuries back open.

"We're here." Inuyasha said, smugly unrepentant as he lurched the car to a stop and turned off the engine. He got out and hurried to Kagome's side to hold open the door for her before one of the waiting doormen could even offer. Kagome paused, looking around the well-lit area. Columns rose on either side, decorative plants in urns around the base of each. The driveway was actually tiled with a fancy design in something that looked like marble, the colors tastefully discreet in shades of gray and cream.

"Come on." Kouga was already out of the car in a fluid motion, a bland-faced doorman holding open the rear door for him. Kouga cocked a brow at the impassive man. "Ernie, do me a favor and park the car. I'll make it worth your while. And you saw nobody go up but me, got that?"

"Yes, sir, yes, Mr. Yorokuzo," the doorman nodded stiffly, used to the odd vagaries of rich youkai clients. He had been hired by the exclusive Towers for his discretion and his sense. He slid into the front seat as Kagome slid out, Inuyasha keeping hold of her arm as she stared about her in wonder.

Kouga led the odd party up the wide steps that fronted the beautifully-glassed entrance. There was even an etched motif along the brass-handled doors, which two maroon-clad doormen held open for them as they sauntered past. Kagome barely got a chance to look around as Inuyasha all but hauled her along. She had to take two short steps for every one long stride of his, and her heels made an odd, echoing tap-tap-tap on the marbled floors as they crossed the wide hall.

She half-expected to see another uniformed doorman manning the elegantly appointed elevator, but the mirrored interior was empty. Inuyasha braced open the door and nodded Kouga in first. Kouga went, easily swinging Sango's dangling legs clear of the entrance. He stood at the back, his face oddly expressionless as Kagome gingerly followed him. She sank down on the long, cushioned bench that covered two sides of the spacious elevator's interior. Inuyasha stepped inside, allowing the doors to close as he thumbed the floor he wanted. Risking a peek, Kagome noted that he selected the very top floor, of course.

Both males remained silent as the elevator swiftly rose. Kagome would not have realized that they were even moving except that her stomach gave that funny little lurch that all elevators gave her as they started climbing. Inuyasha folded his arms over his chest and Kagome wondered uneasily what her two companions were thinking about. She didn't have too much time to worry about it, though, for her stomach flip-flopped again as the elevator came to their floor.

The doors opened on a short hallway. Kagome teetered to her feet as Inuyasha stepped off. Her heels sunk into the plush carpeting, and she stumbled slightly at the unfamiliar footing. Inuyasha's hand snaked out to catch her with easy strength. He kept his claws curled around her elbow as he steered her toward the discreet wooden door at the end of the short hall.

"Keys?" Inuyasha glanced over his shoulder at Kouga, who had followed them.

"Code." The ookami replied in a droll tone. Inuyasha grunted, thumbing open a panel on one side of the solid oak door. Touching a quick series of numbers, the door unlocked with a quiet click. Pushing it open, the hanyou led Kagome to one side so Kouga could follow them in.

Kagome's mouth fell open as she stared around her. Lights embedded in the ceiling had come on as they entered, and others were turning on one by one, as if by a preset arrangement. Most were discreet, amber glows that highlighted some piece of fine art or backlit the shiny green leaves of various potted plants. There was even a set of trees that grew in tall, leafy prominence on a sort of dais at one end of the long, open room. The ceiling went up out of sight, covered in clear glass darkened by the night sky above.

Kouga crossed the circular dais that made up the entrance, stepping down three broad, marble steps to the lower level of the wide-flung living room. At least, Kagome assumed it was the living room, because there were various couches and chairs set here and there, some in more intimate groupings, others facing various windows or views or standing alongside some rather odd looking pieces of furniture. The cabinets themselves could have held anything, from a giant, big-screen TV to a whole cellar full of fine wine.

The young miko felt ill-at-ease among such posh surroundings, but she set her own misgivings aside to hurry after Kouga. Sango was the one who needed her attention right now…

Kouga gently laid the unconscious taijiya on a dark maroon chaise lounge. She looked small and pale amid the lush velvet. Kagome knelt at her side, grabbing one of the limp white hands in hers. She stared up at the two males, who conferred in quiet voices. Inuyasha came over to her as Kouga disappeared through one of the many doors that lined the airy space.

"Sango-chan," Kagome whispered, brushing back the whirling black tangles from off her friend's forehead. The pallid skin felt cool to the touch, but the taijiya didn't stir. Kagome turned worried eyes on the hanyou, seeking reassurance. "She's hurt bad, isn't she. Will she be all right?"

"Yes, but she'll be fine, angel-eyes." The firm assurance didn't come from the amber-eyed hanyou, but from his friend, the ookami. He had a variety of things held in his arms. He dropped the pile into a nearby arm-chair and removed his white sports coat. The collared blue silk shirt beneath was wrinkled and torn a bit. A few dark stains made Kagome lower her eyes in embarrassment. She found herself particularly fascinated by the fact that the lowest button had been torn off, a single blue thread left to dangle forlornly where the button should have been.

"Hmph." Inuyasha stood up, his eyes almost gold in a sour glare at the miko's singular preoccupation with the ookami's clothing. "Need help?"

Kouga shrugged, picking up a bottle of disinfectant and a pile of fluffy white towels that bore a stylized _K/Y_ on their hems in black and gold embroidery. "Get me a drink, would you? Scotch."

Grunting, Inuyasha stalked over to one of the cabinets that stood along the wall. Kagome stayed beside her incoherent friend. "I can help," she offered shyly as the black-haired youkai knelt on the other side.

"Are you squeamish?" He cocked a black brow at her.

_Yes._

"No." She lied, tightening her hold on Sango's limp fingers.

"Liar," he whispered to her, grinning slightly but holding out the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and handing over a pile of hand towels.

Kagome giggled, letting go of Sango's hand to take up the ookami's offering. Unscrewing the bottle's cap, she liberally doused the first towel with the clear, astringent liquid, making a face at the bitter smell. Hearing a faint, ripping noise, she looked up and almost dropped the bottle at the sight of Kouga gripping both ends of Sango's short black dress at the torn hem and tearing it apart in one, smooth motion.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Kagome protested in mortified fury for her helpless friend.

"You don't need to shout, angel-eyes." The ookami narrowed a cool blue gaze on her outrage. "Your friend is hurt. I need to clean out her wounds. The dress was torn already."

"But…but…" Kagome continued to protest feebly, though she could see the youkai's point. There was a shallow gash just above Sango's hip, and a bruise swelling just above her strapless black bra. Blood was seeping from under her bent arm, and there was more bruising on the upper part of her stomach, along her lower ribs.

"Oh, Sango-chan." Kagome felt miserable. Tears blurred her eyes as she daubed at the dried blood that had trickled down the taijiya's exposed hip.

"She's going to have a spectacular black eye." Inuyasha commented as he set a filled glass by the ookami. Kouga merely nodded, lifting Sango's arm so he could take a look at the nasty gash that still bled sullenly just above her black bra's side.

"Won't need stitches." The youkai took some of the towels from beside Kagome and liberally poured peroxide across the opened wound, which bubbled and frothed in agitation.

"Is he a doctor?" Kagome whispered to the hanyou, who sat back on his ass, sipping from his own glass and watching the proceedings.

"Nope. Just practiced." Kouga answered her with a fang-tipped grin before turning his attention to unwinding bandages from a thick roll of gauze. He used his claws to tear right through the tough fabric, and Kagome shivered at the sight, lowering her eyes to studiously clean the cuts along Sango's hip. Spying another one on the inside of the taijiya's wrist, she pressed a clean towel against the shallow graze.

The two males exchanged a telling glance above the miko's bent head.

"Perhaps you should tell us what that was all about, hmmm?" Kouga asked with deceptive mildness as he carefully bandaged the disinfected gash on Sango's side.

Kagome hesitated, looking from amber eyes to blue. Biting her lip, she finished cleaning the scrape on Sango's wrist before sitting back on her heels. "Ah…"

"We have a right to know just why those youkai attacked you, miko." The wolf youkai raised a brow at her astonishment.

"How…?" Kagome stared at him, blue eyes wide.

"How did I know? It's written all over you, angel-eyes." The ookami smirked.

"Feh." Inuyasha crossed his arms, glaring at the casual endearment. "It's your aura. It's shiny."

"Strong." Kouga added as he lightly touched the bruises on Sango's ribs. The taijiya's breath hitched a bit as he pressed more firmly. Grunting, the ookami unwound more gauze from the roll. "Bruised, I think, not broken."

Kagome blinked at the sudden change of topics. "What?"

"Your aura." Inuyasha supplied with short patience. "It's strong."

"Oh." Kagome looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.

"Hold her up, would you?" Kouga jerked his head at Inuyasha, who complied by picking up the limp taijiya so that the wolf could wound a long strip of white cloth around the bruised ribs. Taping it firmly in place, he nodded so Inuyasha could lay her back down on the chaise lounge.

"How come she hasn't woken up?" Kagome asked in a small voice.

Kouga shrugged. "Tired, I guess."

Kagome looked at her hands again. Gods, she felt helpless and weak. It was all her fault. It was always her fault. "She protects me, you know."

"Figured that one out myself, angel-eyes." Kouga gave her a bland look.

"Enough with the angel crap, wolf." Inuyasha growled suddenly, his yellow gaze intense.

"Heh." Kouga grinned toothily before shrugging his compliance. He took a long, thirsty drink from his tumbler of straight Scotch.

"Why were those guys after you?" Inuyasha brusquely changed the subject with irritation. "You told me something about Kikyo…"

"She's my cousin." Kagome said, her expression distant, thinking of how much she resembled the powerful priestess. All but for the color of their eyes.

"Her eyes were brown." Inuyasha stared at her as if weighing their resemblance as well.

"You knew her then?" Kagome asked curiously.

"Yes." The hanyou threw back the rest of his whiskey and refused to explain.

"The youkai?" Kouga prompted dryly, even as he carefully turned Sango's head to look at the green and yellow bruise that was flowering just below her right eye.

"Um, well, er…" Kagome hedged, wondering how much she could really trust them. _Fine time to worry about it now. _With a mental shrug, she decided to just go with her instincts and spill everything.

"We're being hunted by an oni. Naraku." Kagome said in a rush.

"Naraku?" The ookami's head jerked up and Inuyasha growled.

"You know him?" Kagome asked, blue eyes hopeful.

"You could say that." Kouga met Inuyasha's eyes in another long, telling glance.

"Why is he interested in you, miko?" Kouga dropped another soiled towel on the pile of others abandoned beside the chaise.

"Ah, well…" Kagome blushed, not knowing what to say or how to explain the oni's singular fixation on her.

Inuyasha suddenly grinned. "Has good taste, at least."

Kouga merely looked skeptical. "Granted, you're pretty cute, angel-eyes, but Naraku never does anything that doesn't benefit him in more ways than one."

Kagome nodded, eager to change the subject of the despicable oni's lustful desire for her. "I think it's because I have a miko's powers, but don't have much training in how to use them."

"Oh?" Kouga raised a thick brow, his attention suddenly intense.

Kagome shivered under that look. It was so---_youkai._

Feeling her sudden tension, Inuyasha abruptly stood. "Well, I think that's enough for now, wolf-boy. I think you need some privacy, don't you? To finish up that onna? I don't think Kagome would totally understand what you might have to do."

"What do you mean?" Kagome asked, alarmed by the hanyou's casual tone.

"She…ah…needs a few stitches." Kouga lied point-blank.

"Oh." Kagome accepted it as gospel, and stirred uneasily. Dabbing at blood was bad enough. Watching as her friend was sewn together with a needle and thread was a bit too much for her to handle. But she didn't want to leave Sango until she was sure she would be all right.

"She'll be fine, Kagome." Inuyasha touched her shoulder, his eyes holding something she couldn't quite name. It made her breath catch, though, and her heart fluttered in her chest. Swallowing, Kagome nodded as a blush crept up her pale cheeks.

"C'mon. You must be tuckered out. I'll show you a place to crash." Inuyasha held out a clawed hand to help her up. Kagome accepted it with a shy, grateful smile.

She stopped suddenly to say, her blue eyes slightly wet, "Thank you, both. Very much."

Kouga gave her a terse, distracted nod as Inuyasha nudged the young miko toward the other side of the large room and the various doors that led off of it. The hanyou distracted her by saying equitably, "Hope you don't snore, miko."

Kagome blinked up at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I sleep light and wake easy," was the hanyou's lazy response.

Kagome gave him a suspicious look. "What do you mean?"

"Well, seeing as there are really only two bedrooms in this fucking dump, I guess that leaves us to share one of them." Inuyasha lied just as easily as the ookami, who smirked behind them.

"Oh." Kagome was at a loss as the hanyou turned a knob and the door swung open.

"After you." His smile was pure youkai.

**I bet you want the goodies,**

**Bet you thought about it.**

**Got you all hot and bothered.**

**Mad 'cause I talk around it.**

**If you're looking for the goodies,**

**Keep on looking 'cause they stay in the jar.**

**Oh oh oh oh oh oh yeah**

Kouga studied the slender onna with a scowl. Rubbing his tongue lightly over his sharp fangs, he considered where to bite first. What he would like to do was nibble on the sweet little valley between her full breasts, but that delight would just have to wait for now.

Coming to a decision, he bent over the prone woman. Gingerly pulling her right cheek toward him, he lightly licked the soft skin. It was slightly salty. Using the barest brush of the sharpened tip of his fang against her delicate skin, he quickly drained the blood from beneath her bruised eye. He didn't get all of it, and it was a rather nasty business, but it would reduce the swelling and lighten the black eye she had gained from that fight outside his club.

The bruises just above her breasts were too light for a draining of the blood to do much good. He was a bit disappointed by that fact, though he kissed a flowering bruise with a lusty grin of mock apology before turning his attention to the gash just under her arm. Manipulating her like a doll, he turned her so that he could pull off the make-shift bandage and use the healing properties of his saliva to seal the wound shut. He wasn't sure just how much good it would do the little onna, but it couldn't hurt.

He took great pleasure in finding other various scrapes and licking them clean, though the sting of the astringent made him grimace in distaste as he spit it out into his empty glass. He should have filled another glass of whiskey to clear out the nasty aftertaste, but he wanted to make sure he took care of all the girl's wounds.

It was just his luck that the girl finally woke up just when he was licking the back of her neck, where it curved down to join with her shoulder. Her reaction was just what he might have expected of the high-strung wench.

He knew she had awakened by the sudden, indrawn breath and the abrupt rise of adrenaline in her tantalizing scent. He had a bare second as she tensed beneath him before a balled fist came flying for his head. That was easy to grab, as was the knee she then sent for him, though the acrobatic move would have caught another, weaker youkai by surprise. Had the move actually worked, the girl would have used the momentum to flip off her back to land neatly on the balls of her feet beside the chaise lounge.

As it was, he had her in a rather interesting position, one leg raised and bent, an arm pinned back and her hips raised up so that he had a nice view of the firm muscles of her curving ass, not to mention a front-row seat right between her thighs. Too bad her underwear---white granny-panties, as a matter of fact---covered most of her hidden treasures.

His gaze wandered slowly down to lock eyes with hers, and he chuckled as a firm blush rose to stain her cheeks. Her eyes glittered, and he found out quick enough that she still had another leg free to knee him with. Avoiding the kick by the simple expedient of tumbling them both over the side of the maroon chaise, Kouga tightened his arms around her to first cushion her fall, and then to keep her immobile as they finally rolled to a stop.

Using his weight to pin her beneath him, he grinned, liking the play. "Darling, I've been trying to get you in this position all night."

She wasn't pleased, not one bit, and if looks could kill, he would have been one dead wolf right now.

"Fuck you," was her succinct answer.

He just smiled.

Gods, she was hot.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or the song(s) by Ciara that I have used for this fic. This story is for entertainment purposes only, grumble. If it were for money, I would use it to get myself a sexy little wolf and a sexier little inu youkai…

**DON'T HATE THE GAME**

_A/N - I have sacrificed grammar for what sounds right for this story, even though a lot of it is probably rampant stupidity and misuse of the English language. Ah, well, fooey. It's screwy. Deal. (haha, I would so get my ass kicked right now by a true OG…) Anywho, much appreciation and thankies for the reviews. The response to this little story shocked the smack out of me. Thank you! (Fate)_

_PS - I have another Sango/Kouga fic, called "The Source of Solace", under the IY General Section on affnet. This is a blatant blerp to advertise my own crap. end commercial._

WARNING! NC17 LIME CONTENT! (EDIT ON FFNET)

"**Next to You" by Ciara**

**I hope I don't make you mad,**

**With what I'm about to say, boy.**

**Here we are once again,**

**And I'm having second thoughts, boy.**

"Get off of me, wolf."

His compellingly blue eyes wandered lazily over her bare shoulders and across the flushed tops of her curving breasts before finally rising back to meet her glare with a smug smirk. "Darling, I told you I wasn't half done with you yet. Don't you think I deserve a little something-something for all the shit you put me through tonight?"

Sango arched her back, straining to win free of the youkai's pinning hold, but his solid weight was to his advantage, and she only managed to squirm around enough so that she now cradled his hips with hers. Her eyes widened as she felt something stir down there, and he grinned toothily as she stiffened in embarrassment. Increasing the pressure slightly, he nestled his raging hard-on between the soft juncture of her thighs. Her cotton underwear did little to hide the solid contours of his obvious interest, and the slick leather of his pants molded every inch of hard muscle between them.

Sango was squirming for quite another reason now, and she grit her teeth as her body all but begged for her to just give up this insane fight and give in to him. She wanted to shamelessly rub that screaming ache raging between her thighs against the sculpted contours of his rigid length, feel the heat of him firm between the melting depths of her center, surrounding and drowning, claimed and crowned…

He dipped his head, smelling her need and her arousal, and lightly nibbled the creamy skin just under her chin, dropping soft kisses down the long column of her white throat. Her eyes popped open, and she abruptly jerked her head to the side.

Taking advantage of her move to nibble along the curving shell of a delicate ear, Kouga whispered persuasively, "Give in, koi. What's wrong with just giving in?"

She made an inarticulate sound in the back of her throat before arching her spine once more to try and heave his formidable weight up off of her. Kouga adored the fiesty spirit in her, even as he grinned down at her foolishness.

"Won't work, koi." He thrust slightly against her with a dark chuckle. She gasped, and he deliberately drove a hot tongue into her ear that had her mewling as a bolt of pure lust shot right down to her throbbing core. He continued to lathe the delicate shell of her ear with wet heat, feeling how her body hummed beneath his. Her reactions were so refreshingly honest, so utterly basic. It drove him mad with wanting her spread beneath him as he rocked his hips in a faint mimicry of what his talented tongue was doing to her sensitive ear. She panted, her bound breasts heaving beneath him, and he drew back his assault for a bit to nibble on her delicate lobe, not wanting to strain her bruised ribs or play too hard with her delicate self. He nipped, taking her lobe lightly between his teeth and tugging playfully as his chest rumbled in a wolfish purr of male satisfaction.

Emerging from that fierce assault on her senses, Sango's breath rasped out of her. Re-gathering her scattered wits took a good moment or two as the ookami kept playing lightly with her ear. He planted a trail of wet kisses down her throat, his intent all too obvious as he shifted slightly, his blue eyes glowing a bit as he stared down at her heaving breasts. Ducking his head, he kissed the top of one, lace-covered mound, his wet lips making light patterns across her skin as he moved over the luscious curve to lightly kiss the sweet valley between.

"Stop it," she hissed, but he just chuckled.

"Can't rape the willing, can ya?" He murmured to her outraged glare, the angry thoughts too easily read in her dark gaze.

"You're impossible!"

"No, just gifted," he answered with a wicked look. His fangs scraped gently across the soft skin just above the strapless black bra that covered her right breast. Tugging lightly with his teeth, he edged the fabric down just enough to expose a dusky nipple, which pebbled under his hot regard.

"Oh, gods…" She groaned as his tongue swirled over the exposed tip, gasping as he sucked it into his hot mouth to suckle greedily. Bolts of pure lightning shot down her spine and right into her belly, where her muscles tightened into a cramp of raw need as her hips all but rose to welcome him.

Hissing out her anger at her stupid body's betrayal, she panted as Kouga continued to feast on the sumptuous bounty of her breasts, nipping lightly and dragging a fang delicately over the thrusting point as she all but shook underneath him in reaction. Gods, she was hot, and so ready to cum if she would just allow him to…

"Damn wolf!" She grit her teeth even as her hips bucked lightly against him, her body all too willing to show its willingness to be his bitch, anyway and anywhere he wanted. She felt like she was drowning in pure, raw need, and she desperately grasped at the one thing that would get him to stop what he was doing to her, in deliberately taking her control away.

"Why fight nature, little one?" He murmured persuasively, his tongue doing too damn a good job at persuading her stubborn will that it didn't want to fight either. But she was desperate to regain control over herself, she didn't like how easily he could swamp through all her good sense, and make her pant for him like a bitch in heat. So she snarled the first thing that came to her mind, the only thing that might make him stop, and she didn't care if he killed her in the process, because he was already killing her by slow inches…

"I'm a _taijiya_, you fucking youkai!"

He froze above her, his mouth cupping her turgid nipple, a fang lightly grazing the tip as his blue eyes darkened ominously.

**I'm not messin' with your head**

**But I changed my mind, boy.**

**I don't know why I'm here---**

**At the same time I want you near.**

A thin line appeared between the delicately arched brows as the young miko looked at the wide bed that dominated the room. It was done in various shades of pale cream and white, covering every shade from ecru to magnolia to snowy frost. Pillows were heaped in a plentiful assortment and variety of style that would have made an interior decorator pant at the offered manna. The few priceless pieces of scattered furniture were of a dark mahogany, which shone with careful polishing. A wide, floor-to ceiling window dominated two sides of the room, making up two walls of shiny glass, which reflected a blurry image of the room as Inuyasha flicked on the recessed lighting. The night outside was black, though the twinkling lights of downtown New Tokyo interspersed themselves among the inky darkness where their reflection didn't mar the view.

The décor should have been somewhat plain, the creamy colors of the bed washed out, but the thick, royal blue carpeting under her heels brought vibrancy and a peculiar elegance to what seemed almost luxuriously sparse. Kagome felt uneasy at the discreet opulence, though the room's simplicity was actually soothing. It wasn't the room, then, but the hanyou beside her who was getting her all worked up.

Inuyasha casually sauntered over to the bed, where he promptly sat to remove his heavy boots. Kagome watched in fascination as the white claws deftly plucked at the laces before shoving them inside the discarded boots. She continued watching as he peeled first one, and then the other, sock off of his feet. His toes were as clawed as his hands, though not as long in length.

"How do you keep from scratching yourself?" She asked with idle wonder, not realizing she had spoken the thought aloud until he shot her an irritated glare.

"I manage."

"Oh." Kagome's fingers were knit together in front of her. At a loss for words, she looked down at them. She seemed to be doing that a lot tonight.

Inuyasha was suddenly there, in front of her, a white claw lightly tracing her flushing cheek.

It didn't scratch her.

"You okay, princess?" He asked softly, his voice husky. Kagome looked up into those amber eyes, those gentle, amber eyes, and promptly burst into tears.

Chagrined, the hanyou stared at her for a moment before gathering the small woman into his arms with a gusty sigh. Kagome fell into his embrace, her shoulders heaving as all of the tension of the past few hours---not to mention, the past few months---finally caught up with her. She had always felt too ashamed to want to cry in front of Sango, who was always so tough and capable it made Kagome feel so weak and stupid sometimes, much as she loved the taijiya. She felt like an idiot, balling all over a guy she had just met, but he didn't seem to mind, and she couldn't have stopped the tears from flowing down her cheeks even if she tried. So she gave in to the weakness, and felt the better for it when it was all over, though she lay limp and exhausted against the strong, muscled chest of the silver-haired hanyou and her eyes felt all sore and itchy.

"Feel better, princess?" Inuyasha was tenderly considerate, something which would have had Kouga staring at him in utter astonishment, taken aback by such odd behavior for the normally crass hanyou.

"Yes." Kagome was suddenly shy. She abruptly realized just how close he held her cradled in his arms. Somehow, during her crying fit, he had maneuvered them both over to the bed, where he leaned back against a veritable mountain of pillows, the miko pulled across his lap so that her bare legs dangled over the edge. Feeling boneless, she nestled into the curve of his supporting arm.

A claw lightly brushed aside an untidy tangle of fine black hair.

It didn't scratch her.

Kagome sighed, feeling strangely content to just lie there being held in those strong arms.

_**If you want me to leave,**_

_**I will understand.**_

**See, I would just have to respect**

**Your wishes, boy.**

'_**Cause if I stay, ain't no tellin'**_

_**What may happen, boy.**_

**Although you look so good to me,**

**It's best that I leave.**

Wasn't this just fucking great. Here she was, all but naked and flat on her back, a demon's sharp fang a mere breath from biting off her nipple, and she, dumb ass that she was, had just told him she was a demon-slayer.

Sango tensed as the inevitable crimson fury flashed across his blue eyes. Closing her eyes tight, she waited for the mayhem to start and the biting pain to come.

_Coward._

Lord love ya, but it was all too true.

Whatever.

Coward that she was, she kept her eyes shut even when nothing immediately happened. The bastard could be waiting for her to see what he would do with her. Youkai were often cruel, sadistic fuckers. Naraku had been a good example of just how depraved a demonic beast could be…

To her astonishment, she felt his firm weight suddenly lift up off of her. Blinking in surprise, she stared up at the distant, night-blacked ceiling for a moment before coming to her senses and abruptly rolling out of the way. She grunted as she tried to sweep up to her feet, and landed on her bruised ankle. She fell back on her ass with little grace and a whole lot of acute embarrassment.

There was a low chuckle behind her, and Sango turned a glare on the ookami, who had sat back against the velvet chaise lounge, one knee crooked so that he could rest his forearm on it, the other leg straight out along the thick beige carpeting in a pose far too casual for a demon who should be wanting to kill her right about now. The blood was gone from his glinting blue gaze, and he looked sexily mussed, his blue silk shirt rumpled and open at the throat, his black leather pants clinging too tightly to the muscled hardness of his sculpted thighs.

Her cheeks warm, Sango turned her attention away from his charismatic presence. Damn youkai was all but laughing at her. She wanted to kill him.

Furious now, she decided to sit down right there like a mule, rather than trying to get back on her feet and making an ass of herself again. Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at him and demanded icily, "Kagome?"

A black brow rose, and he grinned at her ire. "She's fine."

"Where is she?" Sango wasn't buying it.

"She's with the hanyou."

"Inuyasha?"

"You look a little tense, koi. I could give you a massage, take some of that tension away…" He waggled his claws suggestively, his blue eyes guileless.

"You are _unreal_, you know that?"

"Oh, I'm real, baby. I wouldn't mind showing you just how _real_ I can be…" The suggestion was in his eyes now.

"I'm a taijiya," she reminded him sharply.

His eyes darkened for a moment, but then he shrugged. "You're also hot."

"You can't be that hard up." Sango's reply was more wondering than biting.

He just grinned, fangs flashing.

_He's _crazy_. I gotta get out of here._

"Where's Kagome and Inuyasha?" She looked around the lavish room, as if she could pull them out of thin air. She wasn't quite sure just where she was, but she was damn sure it wasn't Oz, though she felt as out of place as Dorothy ever had.

"Sleeping," he said with a smirk. Sango stiffened. Kagome wouldn't just go off with a man---er, hanyou---she had just met, though she had been acting quite giddy over the guy back at the club.

"Which _you_ should be." The ookami interrupted her startling thoughts, his gaze direct.

"What?" Sango shot him an accusing look.

"Sleeping," he said, getting to his feet in a single, fluid motion she downright envied.

"What the fuck are you…" She scooted back on her butt as he purposely came toward her. She felt the solid mass of an arm-chair behind her back, and used it to lever herself back up on her feet. Muscles pulled at the strain, and she all but tottered like one drunk. "Damn it."

"You're exhausted, koi." His voice was low, considerately compassionate.

She didn't trust it, or him.

"I'm fine, damn you. Tell me which room Kags is in so we can go."

"I don't think so, koi." He drawled the words out, crossing his arms over his broad chest when he saw her flinch away from his initial gesture of assistance.

Sango gave him a look of utter disbelief. "I don't see how you can stop me, wolf."

He just smiled.

**I'm scared of bein' next to you**

**Because of what I think I might do.**

**Boy, you're turning me on right now,**

**I can't get down like that right now.**

Kagome fought back a yawn as the hanyou's claws idly combed through her long black tresses. The motion felt soothing and reminded her of home. Her mother had often brushed her hair for her as they had chatted on long, lazy Sunday afternoons…

"Sleepy?" He nudged her chin up with a light knuckle.

Kagome bit her lip, suddenly reminded that _this_ was not her mother, and that she was alone in bed with him, a guy she had just met.

Though it sure felt like she had known him for a hundred years…

**Don't want to disturb the flow,**

**But this is not my M.O.**

**Hold up, wait a minute, movin' too fast---**

**I want something like this here to last.**

"I'm leaving. _Now_."

"With no clothes? I'm impressed, koi. I didn't expect you to be so freaky." The ookami's grin, if anything, widened.

He would find it amusing, the damn perv.

Sango's lips twisted in self-derision. "I don't know what you did with my dress, wolf, but I want it back. _Now_."

"You say that word an awful lot. Does it ever actually work?" He leaned back against the tall table that stood beside the plush, maroon lounge. His blue eyes were far too mocking for her taste.

Sango glared, furious with his goading. "It's all a game to you, isn't it?"

He merely shrugged. "Life's a game, darling."

"You can quit calling me that, youkai," she snapped. Why was he toying with her? She just wanted her clothes and Kagome, in that order, and she would get the hell out of his hair. She was a taijiya, damn it. That in itself should have been enough reason for the ookami to want to see the back of her, and right quick.

"And you can quit calling me _that_, koi," he replied with a mild flash of his reddened eyes.

The blood anger withdrew from his amused gaze as she promptly growled, "Why? It's the truth, isn't it?"

"Don't hate, gorgeous." He pouted, actually _pouted_.

Sango couldn't believe to what lengths that cheesy wolf would go. Though that pout was too damn sexy for his own good, or her relative peace of mind.

"Look, playa, I don't know what your true deal is, but I've had enough of it to last me a lifetime---"

He suddenly sprang forward to catch her as she tried to stomp toward him and all but fell on her face.

_Damn ankle. _

Gods, she must be tired, to keep forgetting about it, though it was throbbing right now with an insistence that pissed her off right good at her body's weak betrayal. A headache loomed, and she slumped against him as the adrenaline of waking up abruptly wore off and every single bruise decided now was just a perfect time to start alerting her brain that her resources were slim and her strength gone.

_Damn it…I hate being this fucking weak…_

_**(R.Kelly)**_

_**Don't say no, baby.**_

_**Not right now, baby.**_

_**I want you to be my lady.**_

_**You got me goin' crazy.**_

"You're stubborn, you know that?" He stared down at her, his eyes smiling. He rather liked that about her. As he did the way her brown eyes turned nearly black when she got real good and pissed, like she was now. Gods, she affected him like nobody had in a good, long time, and she didn't even know it, the little darling. There was something so…untamed…about her, something so real and genuine. She was so direct, her feelings right out there for anyone who cared to really look. She was fierce, and loyal, and all too damn wolfish for his peace of mind.

It was almost enough to make him forget what she was.

_Taijiya._

He should have been shocked by the revelation, but it didn't even startle him, really. Not every onna had the wherewithal---let alone the cheek---to fend off eight youkai attackers all on their lonesome. Though he had helped her out a bit, she had maintained her own against them until he could get to her side.

"You can let go of me, youkai." She nearly ground her teeth together over that one. Kouga grinned even as he swung her up in his arms.

"When you stop calling me youkai, darling." He sauntered over to the nearest sopha. She was not as heavy as he would have thought. "My name is Kouga."

Damn her sexy, stubborn self, she just rolled her eyes as he gently laid her down on the plush leather. Forking a beige chenille blanket off of the nearest chair, he draped it across her up to the chin, knowing she would feel more comfortable for the covering, though he didn't really want to cover up a single inch of that adorably creamy skin.

She wrapped the soft blanket around her like a shield. Kouga pouted, even as his eyes glinted in amusement. Turning to the closest liquor cabinet, he opened the trestle top and snagged a glass. Cocking a questioning brow in the girl's direction, he asked, "Drink?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. Damn, she was suspicious. It must come from being a taijiya. Or perhaps, given Kagome's few remarks concerning that foul monkey, Naraku, it was just a natural reaction to the youkai she had known in the past. He wondered how well she had known those youkai, and _that_ youkai in particular. Naraku was known to have certain---appetites---and the girl Sango was damn edgy around him, Kouga. Perhaps she had had first-hand reasons to fear demons of any kind. He didn't like that thought, and was rather surprised at the anger that seethed through him at the idea of it. Sure, the girl was hot, but he was acting all protective and shit. Funny, though, it didn't disturb him as much as it should have…

Liberally pouring for them both, though she had not accepted his offer of a drink, he adroitly added a few sedatives to her glass, cutting it with club soda to flavor and hide any trace of the dissolved drug. With any luck, she'd be out for the count in less time than it took her to drain the glass…

Picking up both, he turned with a slow, curving smile.

**Well, I guess I'll stay for a minute,**

**Then I have to go, boy.**

**This moment is so temptin'.**

**Right now it's not what I want boy.**

Eying the extended glass suspiciously---not to mention, the bearer---Sango debated taking the youkai's offer of a drink.

_With my luck, he's laced it._

He smiled at her, a knowing smile, almost a damn smirk. Raising a sardonic brow, he raised his own glass to her before drinking heartily. Ice clicked against the glass as he set it to his lips, and Sango watched with wide-eyed fascination as his tongue flicked out to catch a small cube and suck it into the drawn hollow of his mouth, suckling lightly before slowly swallowing.

She suddenly had to remember how to breathe, and a flush stained her cheeks as his half-lidded eyes glinted under lashes too thick and sexy for a man---or youkai---to have.

Trying to hide her discomfiture, she snatched the second glass out of his hand and took a healthy swig. She paused, frowning, as she tasted something odd in the mix of strawberry soda and hot vodka.

"Too warm?" A hot voice breathed too close to her ear for comfort. Sango jumped, and turned her head to scowl at his impertinent ass, which was now sitting on the carpet beside her sopha. Blue eyes the color of a clear summer's day regarded her with innocent amusement as he propped his chin on her bare shoulder. "Want me to add some ice, darling?"

Sharply shifting her shoulder away from his chin, Sango growled, "No, thanks."

Lifting the glass, she drained the rest of it so he wouldn't get any more stupid ideas. A strange, hazy feeling started spreading up from the warm knot in her stomach where the alcohol had created a warm glow in her belly. Sango blinked, trying to focus eyes that were suddenly heavy.

Shit.

Her voice was thick even to her own mind, which was screaming in a hazy, drunken way that the fucker had just drugged her.

_"Damn youkai…"_

She slumped, and the world went black.

**Maybe if we just embrace,**

**With a simple kiss, boy,**

**But that'll only make things worse.**

**Hope I'm not getting on your nerves, boy.**

Was he…was he about to _kiss_ her?

Kagome bit her lip, looking into those compellingly golden eyes that could make every sane thought just seem to fly right out of her head. She trembled, wondering if this was going to be it, if this was the moment in which she, Kagome, would get her first, real kiss---and from a man she hardly even knew.

His claws, which had combed so carefully through the long tangles of her fine hair, had come to rest gently along her cheek. His thumb lay along the edge of her jaw, lightly stroking her lips as his other fingers drew soothing circles along the curve of her ear and neck. He stared at her, and she at him, and they said nothing, but Kagome trembled, and he smiled slightly.

"Do I frighten you, princess?" His voice was so low and husky, Kagome could only shiver in response, her eyes wide.

She was honest though, always honest, although the answer surprised her, because it was so true. "No."

"You're…something, princess." He grinned, fangs flashing, and drew her chin up with his thumb so he could kiss her, a light kiss, one that was a mere brush of his firm lips against hers.

Kagome mewed, frustrated somehow, and when he would have drawn his mouth away, she followed, her hand coming up to curve in the heavy tangles of his silver hair at the base of his neck so that she could keep his mouth on hers. With a daring as strange to her as her sudden need for him, she opened her lips beneath his, her tongue lightly seeking entrance, as she had seen other couples do, on TV or in the park.

He chuckled, low in his throat, and complied with her unspoken wish. Deepening the kiss, he twined his tongue with hers, opening her swollen lips so that he could explore her wet depths with a thoroughness that had Kagome clinging to him, her lashes fluttering closed as she gave herself up to a new hunger and a new depth of pure sensation that she could never have imagined…

Eventually, they broke apart, and she gasped, needing air. He laughed, and kissed her temple, snuggling her closer against him as her cheeks flushed hot and her eyes turned dewy with awakened wonder. It had been her first kiss, and it had been everything she had ever dreamed, and it was because of him…

He'd done it. He'd made her toes curl.

_**I just want it to be right for both of us.**_

**When you don't have to say a thing to make me comfortable.**

_**Boy, you make me so weak when you look at me.**_

**But right now I'm a little confused, I think it's best that I refuse.**

She'd fallen for it---literally.

Chuckling, Kouga surveyed the slumbering taijiya with a triumphant smirk. He'd rescued the empty glass just as her limp fingers had let go of it, her eyes rolling closed as she muttered her last "_damn_" for the night.

Abandoning both glasses on the nearest table, Kouga picked her up, blanket and all, and strode from the living room, the woman held firmly in his arms. Her head lolled until it came to rest against his shoulder, her long hair tangling around her cheek and bare shoulders.

He managed to kick the unlocked door to his bedroom open, swing her inside, and casually elbow it shut behind him. The recessed lighting along the upper walls had come on as he entered, highlighted the warm beige marble above the line of abstract mirrors cut in odd patterns along the lower half of the back wall. Traversing the airy space, with was rounded into a three-quarter circle on the outer edge, and lined with giant floor-to-ceiling windows and doors, a narrow balcony circling beyond them, he climbed the raised dais to where his custom-made bed sat in singular glory.

He'd paid a hefty stash for that bed, which was as round as the three-stepped dais it sat upon. Mountains of pillows in alternating shades of bronze, chocolate, black, rust, cream and beige were strewn on and around the bed amidst the pile of furs he preferred to costlier fabrics. The room was sparsely furnished, a small, chocolate divan in one corner, a closed cabinet in the other.

Dropping one knee on the bed, he bent down to lay the taijiya amid the piled furs. Pulling the chenille throw from around her, he swept back the covers to expose the creamy satin sheets beneath. Nestling the slender girl within a cocoon of fur and satin, he paused, looking down at her thoughtfully.

Muttering under his breath, he stalked to his closet and slid the door aside. Glaring at the rows of expensively tailored suits and more casual wear that hung on padded, silken hangers, he finally swiped the closest T-shirt and returned to the bed. Lifting the girl in one arm, he had her black bra off with an easy, practiced twist of his claws. He stopped to admire her breasts, which were larger than he'd thought, though not too top-heavy for her narrow frame. The dusky areole surrounding her rising nipples made him touch the tip of his tongue to one fang in a sexy smirk of delightful contemplation.

Damn, she was tempting. She was also knocked out, and in no position to appreciate his singular interest in her body---or the raging hard-on that was threatening to burst right out of his tight, leather pants. He wanted his women awake and aware, thank you. With a regretful sigh, he covered her delightful charms with the T-shirt he had filched from his closet and tossed the covers back over her. Combing the tangled black hair from her cheek, he finally left her side to go take a long-needed shower---and to go handle that insistent bulge that had him adjusting his sleek leather pants with a wincing grimace…

**I'm scared of bein' next to you,**

**Because of what I think I might do,**

**Boy, you're turning me on right now.**

**I can't get down like that right now.**

**Don't want to disturb the flow,**

**This is not my M.O. **

**Hold up, wait a minute, ya movin' too fast---**

**I want something like this here to last.**

"I…" Kagome swallowed, not sure how to explain why she felt so hesitant, why she suddenly felt so shy. He would take her for a tease, plastered against him in a giant bed, all but begging for his kiss, and then backing off like she'd just switched the tag to fool…

"Hey." He nudged her chin up, making her raise her down-cast eyes to meet the amber humor in his. "I got you, princess. I understand. We just met, and you ain't used to this, are you?"

Kagome blinked, surprised that he understood her so easily, so completely. "Um…yeah."

Man, she felt like an idiot saying that, but he just smiled, a warm smile. "S'okay, princess. You sleep now, don't worry. I'll protect you."

"I…thank you," she could only whisper, feeling it was inadequately lame for all that he just given her, but she snuggled against his shoulder, grateful. His arms tightened around her as she felt exhaustion creep up over her conscious mind. She couldn't have heard him right, it must have been her imagination, but she could have sworn she heard him growl as she dropped off, the words burning into her dreams...

"Damn, I'm caught. _Fuck_."

_**Supposed to be playin' cards,**_

_**Or watchin' a movie.**_

**But we keep lockin' eyes, boy.**

**Now why you tryin' to tease me?**

Stretching the crick from the back of his neck, Kouga tried to concentrate on the stupid screen in front of him. Even with high-speed access and extra memory built into the laptop, it was trudging along like it hadn't a care in the world. Scowling at the stupid site, which was taking forever to load, he switched over to play Solitaire while he waited. Chugging black coffee, he winced as Inuyasha emerged from one of the guest rooms, a shaft of brilliant sunlight piercing through the un-shaded windows behind the hanyou to smack Kouga right in the eye before the mutt finally closed the door.

"Shower," Inuyasha muttered in scant greeting, slamming another door open, this one to the guest bathroom.

"Morning to you, too, dickhead." Kouga groused, still wincing from that stupid ray of piercing sunlight. Dumb dog had forgotten to close the shades last night in his room. Thoughtless, as usual. That bedroom faced east, into the rising sun, and would wake that girl Kagome up, unless she was as dead to the world as that other girl, Sango.

Kouga winced, for a far different reason this time. Even thinking of that stupid girl gave his dick an excuse to make itself uncomfortably cramped inside his pants. _Fuck._

Reaching down, he tried to adjust the clingy black silk of his pajama bottoms just as the bedroom door opened for a second time, and Kagome cautiously peeped her head out around the corner, her angelically blue eyes wide as she stared straight at him and his fumbling claws.

Double fuck.

Chagrined, Kouga quickly tried to stand up and hide his abortive movement. Hot coffee sloshed over the side of his mug to splash across the back of his hand. "Fuck!"

"Are you okay?" Kagome scurried over to his side, concern written all over her sweet, heart-shaped face. Picking up the cloth napkin he had rested his cup on, she tried to pull his waving hand into hers so she could assess the damage.

Kouga looked down at the bent black head, blue eyes lighting as he noted that she still had on the little red dress from last night, and he had a grandstand view of the luscious valley between her perky breasts. Not as full as Sango's, perhaps, but not half-bad…

Wincing, he noticed his dick was taking an interest in the miko's tits, too. Complete retreat was the best strategy in this situation, and so Kouga slapped the traitorous mug down on the coffee table, grabbed the napkin out of the girl's hands with a terse thanks, and sauntered off to the kitchen, where he could run cold water over the scald until his youkai hide could heal itself. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes, and the ice-cold water might make his dick think twice about twitching so damn much.

Damn, he needed to get laid, and badly. He hadn't felt this horny---or hard up---since junior high. It was all that stupid taijiya's fault. He'd spent the whole fucking night aware of her lying right there next to him in his bed, and not being able to do a damn thing about it. How long had it been since he'd had a woman in bed with him and all they did was fucking sleep?

Or _not_ sleep, as the case was. Tossing and turning while his dick kept howling wasn't a good way to get any rest. Having such a hot little piece passed out right next to him hadn't helped one fucking bit.

He'd had to give up the goat and finally go sleep on one of the sophas in the living room, and if that wasn't fucked up, then he didn't know what was…

_**This room is getting heated,**_

_**Won't you open a window?**_

**I think that I should go now,**

'**Cause I can't take this no more…**

Still blinking, Kagome could only stand there as the wolf stalked away from her with a scowl, his blue eyes dark and smoldering. Feeling weird, she wrapped her hands around her bare, upper arms and stared around her. The spacious living room was even more overwhelming by day, and she felt stupid standing there in her red dress, her bare feet sinking deeper into the thick, beige carpet.

Something bleeped, and she looked down at the open laptop on the coffee table beside Kouga's abandoned coffee cup. Wrinkling her brows in a frown, she shook her head in wonder. The web site that had popped up on the screen was a women's clothing store, an expensive one.

_Why is he looking at women's clothes?_ That was just---weird. Unless he owned it. Hell, he could. She had no idea what Kouga did or owned---well, besides that nightclub, _Rave_. She just knew that he was loaded---he had to be, living _here_, at the Towers, and in the penthouse, no less.

"Hey."

Kagome turned, blushing, at the sound of that husky voice.

Her eyes widened, because he was standing there in only his blue jeans, which were unbuttoned, a damp towel draped over his broad shoulders as he used one end to scruff the damp tendrils of his silver hair, which clung to the corded muscles of his bare chest. There was a faint, darker line of silver trailing down his navel and disappearing into the top of his jeans that had her cheeks flushing so hot she wanted to fan the heat from them with her flapping hands.

"H-Hi." She was stuttering, actually stuttering!

He grinned at her, using both ends of the towel now to fuss with his hair. Dropping it on the back of a nearby armchair, he strode over to stand in front of her, hands on hips and amber eyes glinting. "Sleep good, princess?"

"Uh…yes, thank you." She sounded so prim, it was ridiculous. Why was she suddenly so shy and tongue-tied around him? Kami, he must think she was a real dork.

"I like dorks." He said with another of those heart-melting smiles.

Did she actually say that _aloud?_

"I like _you_, princess." He gave her a hard hug and a quick peck on the cheek.

Kagome blinked.

"Want a shower?" He asked, chuckling at her emphatic nod.

"Hell, yes." She looked around, baffled by all the doors and forgetting which one he had emerged from.

"Third on the left." He nudged her with his hip in the general direction, and she smiled her thanks as she made tracks for the bathroom, eager to get clean and just as happy to flee his overwhelming presence, and the crazy way he had of making her heart thump a mile a minute just by staring up at him…

**I'm scared of bein' next to you, _(Next to you…)_**

**Because of what I think I might do. _(Think I might do…)_**

**Boy, you're turning me on right now.**

**I can't get down like that right now.**

Closing the door behind her, Kagome leaned back against it with a weary sigh. He was even more overwhelming than the stupid living room, and she didn't know why she was acting so crazy around him. She was just so unused to having someone affect her like that, someone she trusted so completely, so totally, and so _suddenly_.

Shaking her head, she decided to let it go for now. Following his invitation, she peeled off her clothes and ducked into the shower, which was as opulent and tastefully expensive as the rest of the apartment. There was a built-in bench, for gods' sake, and frosted etchings across the clear glass of curling waves in abstract design. She had her choice of numerous bottles of this and that, and was startled to find so many were feminine.

Picking at random, she stumbled through the complicated levers that finally turned the spraying water to the temperature and force she wanted, and allowed the steamy water to wash her worries away…

**Don't want to disturb the flow _(Don't wanna…)_**

**This is not my M.O. _(That just ain't me.) _**

**Hold up, wait a minute _(What, I'm sorry!), _ya movin' too fast…**

**I want something like this here to last.**

Inuyasha cocked a brow at the laptop. _Women's dresses? That's a little freaky, even for Wolf-boy._

"Coffee?" Kouga growled behind him.

"Black, sugar," Inuyasha replied, eyes still on the thin computer. There was a rather complicated shopping list flashing on the screen, just waiting for the youkai's final approval. He looked up when Kouga nudged his shoulder with a full cup. "Thanks."

The ookami merely grunted, dropping to the couch beside him. "Stupid thing finally loaded, huh?"

Waving the coffee cup clutched in his claws at the computer, Inuyasha demanded, "What the hell is all that?"

"Clothing, dumb ass," Kouga answered, clicking acceptance of the total bill.

"No shit, Sherlock," Inuyasha paused to suck down some coffee before adding, "but what's it for?"

"_Who's_ it for, rather." Kouga answered, sitting back with a smirk.

"Well?" Inuyasha growled, chugging down more coffee. Kouga made a good pot, but then again, he had Starbucks delivering fresh beans every other day, and even a butt-sniffing wolf youkai couldn't fuck that stuff up.

"It's for them. The girls." Kouga shrugged at Inuyasha's raised brow. Shrugging himself, the hanyou dismissed it as unimportant.

"What are we gonna do about them?" Inuyasha asked instead, intent on the wolf's answer. He already knew what he was---and wanted---to do with sweet little Kagome, but he wondered if Wolf-boy meant to do anything more than give that other girl, Sango, a good time and a few days' sanctuary.

Kouga shrugged carelessly. "Help 'em, what else?"

"They're into some deep shit." Inuyasha said, more musing his thoughts aloud rather than bitching about it.

"Yeah," Kouga agreed, and they fell into silence, sipping their coffee, each lost in their own thoughts until Kouga interrupted with a blunt, "But, you know, Mutt-face, I don't think I mind all that much."

"Yeah." Inuyasha said, amber eyes brooding.

**I'm scared of bein' next to you, _(I'm so scared…)_**

**Because of what I think I might do.**

**Boy, you're turning me on right now,**

**I can't get down like that right now.**

Waking up was a process. Normally, she could go from sleeping to woke in under a second, trained from childhood to always be ready for the unexpected. Surprise attacks always came when you weren't ready for them, and most assassins preferred to work in the dark.

This morning, though, she seemed to be swimming through a hazy swirl of dreamy layers as reality slowly crept in around her and sleep receded like a lingering caress. She gradually became aware of a thick warmth surrounding her in a bed that felt as soft as a cloud. Rubbing a cheek against the delightfully soft fabric of her pillow, Sango blinked open her eyes and yawned, stretching luxuriously in the soft embrace of the best bed she had ever slept in, awaking from the best damn sleep she had ever had…

Her mind refused to focus just yet, still muzzy with sleep. Lazily looking around her in an uncharacteristically contented way, Sango mulled over the fact that she didn't quite know where she was. That fact should have had her jumping out of bed ready for mayhem, but she just yawned again, blinking at the strange furry blankets that surrounded her beneath satin sheets that bore a stylized _K/Y _in fancy black embroidery on the edge. Blinking at the initials, she wondered what they meant, though she wanted to giggle at what KY _could_ be used for…

Giggle? She wanted to _giggle?_

Rousing from her stupor by the stupid thought, Sango flipped the blankets back and darted from the bed like it was about to bite her----

Only to stumble down the three steps of the raised dais the bed sat on like a wind-milling dumb ass, finally falling on her butt with a loud, horrifying shriek.

**Don't want to disturb the flow, _(Don't wanna…disturb my flow…)_**

**This is not my M.O. **

**Hold up, wait a minute, _(This ain't me!) movin' too fast…_**

**I want something like this here to last… _( It just ain't me!)_**

To her complete and utter humiliation, her startled yell was followed not a minute later by the bedroom door slamming open, and all three of them piling into the room with various looks of shock and alarm written all over their faces.

"Sango?" Kagome looked positively frightened, flying to her side with a white face and wide blue eyes. The wolf was faster, though, and swept her up in his strong arms before she could so much as squeak out a protest, plopping her on the bed with a frown for the scare she'd just given him.

"Sango, are you all right?" Kagome's hands fluttered over her, trying to slide around the ookami's bulk to see for herself.

"Yes." Sango wanted to die right there. The ookami was staring down at her, his blue eyes tilted slightly at the corners in a mocking smirk of pure amusement at her expense. Not sure what expression would be dignified after such a crack to her dignity, she settled for scowling back up at him.

"Afternoon, darling." His fangs flashed as he grinned down at her.

_Afternoon_? Eyes widening, Sango stared around the room, which was draped in dim shadows by the thick beige curtains that hung in a circular arc around most of the wide space. Lights recessed into the marbled wall behind her had her blinking as she stared up at the ceiling in bewilderment.

The damn wolf had mirrors built into his ceiling.

A flash of her own reflection just behind her made her head turn, and she realized that he also had mirrors hung along the back wall, though these were in a pattern of abstract shapes that cut dissecting designs of her image at odd intervals. Still…it was damn creepy, and just too damn…playa-playah.

What next, a disco ball and heat lamps?

"You are _unreal_, you know that, youkai?" She said in disgust, tossing the blankets off of her with a sharp motion. That's when she got a good look at what she was wearing---an over-large, black T-shirt that had to be his---and the simple, white, block letters spilling across the front of it.

**FUCKED.**

Sango's eyes widened, and she stared up at him in horror, her voice flat with denial. "We didn't."

His amusement died into a dark scowl as Kagome giggled, and the hanyou snickered.

"Not cute, taijiya." He glared.

"Taijiya?" The hanyou's snickering died as his amber eyes narrowed.

"Uh-oh." Kagome sat down on the bed beside her with a thump. "Guess we should explain…"

"We're not the only ones," Sango added, her eyes flashing dangerously.

**This ain't me, _(Not hardly, ain't me!)_**

**I'm scared of bein' next to you, _(I'm…so…scared…)_**

**Because of what I think I might do.**

Staring at herself in the mirror above the sink---though she could have stared in the sink, or the counter, or the floor, or anywhere else in this crazy bathroom that only a crack-headed wolf youkai could have dreamed up---she still couldn't believe how crazy _she_ looked.

_Speaking of crack-heads…_

Her mascara had smudged around her eyes, leaving a raccoon in the mirror to blink back at her. The faded bruising around her right eye only added to the effect, as well as the nice bruise just above her left cheek. She looked tired out, her hair a dark tangle that hung around her shoulders and back, fading into the black T-shirt that drooped like a tent down to the middle of her thighs.

Grimacing at that stupid white word on the front of the giant T-shirt, Sango dragged it off her and dropped it on the counter beside her. She wondered in faint disgust just _when_ the youkai perv had taken off her bra, and what the hell he had done with it in the meantime. Catching sight of herself on the mirrored floor below her dirty bare feet, Sango made a face.

The whole bathroom---walls, floor, ceiling, counter, shower, bath, dual sinks, every _fucking_ thing---was covered in mirrors. Tiled mirrors. Short, square, annoyingly reflective mirrors. Her broken image bounced back at her at every angle, the only relief where fluffy white and black towels were hung on _mirrored _silver handles sticking out of the wall at convenient spots, and even those towels were annoying, stylized as they were with the cursive _K/Y _of Kouga's egomania. Even the fluffy white bathrobe hanging just beside the free-standing, clear-glass shower bore the youkai's stupid stamp on the right lapel.

_Gods, he's hopeless. He doesn't _need _a disco-ball, he has one built right into the walls of his bathroom!_ Sango shook her head, even thinking of that wolf was going to drive her straight batty.

And if she didn't find the toilet right quick, her bladder was going to go batty, too…

The second recessed door she tried (mirrored, of course), let into a thankfully _un-_mirrored water-closet. The walls in here were thankfully marbled in the same warm beige as the bedroom, the toilet as elegant as necessity allowed, with golden fittings surrounding the gleaming black surface. _Real_ gold, if she wasn't mistaken. Rolling her eyes, Sango finished up and kept her underwear off, dangling the white granny-panties from the silver knob on the outside of the door with a smirk.

Naked, she hobbled across the bathroom, trying not to look at herself from every blasted angle, and opened up the shower door. The floor, of course, was mirrored, as was the bench that curved around half of the expansive shower's base. Rolling her eyes again---and wincing as she bent over, for she had a couple of bruised ribs that did not like the reflexive movement---she fiddled with the silver knobs, and got a face full of ice-cold water for her pains.

Gagging, Sango blindly turned the faucet off. _That_ was certainly one way to wake the hell up.

She had better luck the second time around, and sank onto the bench as blessedly warm water sprayed gently around her, soothing the stiffness from her shoulders and easing the tension from her soul. She took her time, luxuriating in water that never cooled no matter how long she kept it running. Washing her hair with some type of expensively exotic shampoo and conditioner that smelled faintly of fresh-cut flowers, she was surprised to find an array of purely feminine products, including a pink loofah, sponge and razor.

_Wow, this guy goes all out, doesn't he?_

The thought wasn't as biting as it should have been; she was rather grateful that the black-haired youkai was so sure of himself with the ladies that he kept feminine bath products easily to hand in his very own shower. Using all of it with reckless abandon, Sango enjoyed pampering herself as she rarely would have.

_Hell, he can afford it. Still---scary how much crap he has. This guy is Big Time. He plays the game like no one I know. Damn._

Now where they hell did that thought come from? Why should she care if Mr. KY had a band-wagon full of groupies just licking their lips to be near his hot, sexy self? She was hardly one to run panting after a man---er, youkai---and she definitely wasn't going to start now! Though, damn if he wasn't just as hot as she remembered, even dressed more casually in jeans and a rumpled blue T-shirt. _His_ shirt hadn't had any stupid junk written across the front, and reminded of her humiliation---multiple humiliations---of earlier, she frowned as she climbed out of the shower, dragging a white towel from off a convenient bar and then using it to dry off.

Thriftily using the same towel to wrap her wet hair up off her neck, Sango dragged the bulky white bathrobe over her slender figure, wincing a bit as she put too much weight on her tender ankle. Damn. She was going to be limping it for a few days, until the stupid thing healed. It wasn't more than strained, however, and she had been rather surprised by how few cuts and bruises she had, after that heinous fight last night at the club.

Weird, that.

Shrugging off what she couldn't explain (and hardly mattered), Sango belted the robe closed just as a faint knock heralded the arrival of her youkai nemesis. Cracking the door open, he looked downright disappointed to find her already covered by the shapeless white robe.

Sango scowled at his image in the unbroken mirror above the sink, not bothering to turn and face him. "Don't you knock?"

"I knocked." His grin grew wicked as he stared down at the reflective floor beneath her bare feet.

Sango's eyes narrowed.

**Boy, you're turning me on right now,**

**I can't get down like that right now…**

"I brought you some clothing." He said, by way of a peace offering, wrenching his eyes up off of the tantalizing view of her inner thighs on the mirrored floor beneath her feet with an effort.

"I don't need another of your lame T-shirts." She bit out, all pins and needles like a bristling porcupine.

He chuckled, remembering her reaction to his "Fucked" shirt. It seemed funnier now, than it had then. "It wasn't on purpose, I assure you."

His blue eyes were guileless; she didn't seem to be falling for it, though. Taking her silence for assent, he flung the door wide and dragged in a couple of shopping bags that had arrived only a few hours ago by special delivery. Plopping them on the counter between the dual sinks, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned one hip against the sink beside him. She looked cute wrapped in that over-sized robe. The doubly-knotted belt around her trim waist reminded him of a present he wouldn't mind unwrapping before Christmas…

"Are you done?" She snapped, not liking the effect his smoldering blue eyes had on her good sense.

"I told you, koi, we ain't half-done yet." He reminded her, his voice husky with desire.

She trembled, her eyes going all cinnamon and wide, and he smiled---a slow, sensual smile.

**Don't want to disturb the flow,**

**This is not my M.O. **

**Hold up, wait a minute, movin' too fast,**

**I want something like this here to last… _(Too fast…)_**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or the song(s) by the Pussycat Dolls, Snoop Dogg and TLC that I have used for this fic. This story is for entertainment purposes only, sigh. Like this broke-ass heifer ever gets paid…

**DON'T HATE THE GAME**

_A/N - This chapter went completely wack on me. I was going to write it one way, and it ended up going quite another, thanks to a certain review. (Thank you, Chigirl!) I have, of course, added my own twist to it. MWAHAHAHAHA! I love lovely evilnessedness. I also want to say that I've switched up more than just the story, but also the songs I was going to use. I am not limiting myself to Ciara's CD, as I first intended. Anywhatever, thanks for the reviews, they are truly inspiring!_

_(Fate)_

WARNING! NC17 LIME CONTENT! (EDIT ON FFNET)

"**Buttons, Remix" by The Pussycat Dolls, featuring Snoop Dogg**

**_Snoop Dogg:_  
What it do, baby boo?  
**

Hell, he knew exactly what _he_ wanted to do, but did she want it like that? She was complicated, this taijiya, who had already given him more pause than any hot little piece ever had. She seemed all hard edges and sharp angles, but waters ran deep in that one. She couldn't hide it from him, that she wanted him---though she fought it, and him, as if she were desperate to prove to herself that she _could_.

But he knew he could win past that caution she had, that hard exterior built up against a world she was so afraid of letting in, afraid as she was that she just might get bit by it.

Like he would ever bite her---well, scratch that. He would absolutely love to bite her---starting with a few sexy little nips up that creamy white throat of hers, interspersed with a few lingering little kisses, and maybe a few tasty nibbles on that sweet little earlobe just peeking out from under the bundled towel on her head, maybe then she would even let him start sucking on---_damn!_

Couldn't she see that he would never hurt her? At least, not intentionally. Hell, he was only in it for a good time. Wasn't that what life was all about? The ride? She should just loosen up a bit and live a little, that's all he was asking. He could show her a thing or two to make her beautiful brown eyes widen---if not roll back in her head as she screamed out that passion she kept so tightly held within a hard shield of quick denial…

**  
Yeah, little mama, you looking good.  
I see you wanna play with a player from the hood.  
Come holler at me, you got it like that,  
Big Snoop Dogg, with the lead Pussycat.  
**

Wrapped head to knee in giant white bathrobe, a towel looped up over her wet hair, she looked like a fat little maharajah in a terry turban and far too sexy for such a silly comparison. Hell, she looked cute in anything---even those dreadful granny panties now hanging from the knob on his bathroom door. He hadn't thought anyone under sixty ever wore those damn things, but she had, and made them sexy as all hell. He wondered what she looked like without them under that double-knotted robe that hid her curves beneath a shapeless bundle of snowy obscurity.

If he angled his right eye just a bit, though, he was actually able to make out the upper curve of her healthy little ass---an ass even J-Lo wouldn't mind marketing---in the reflective mirror beyond them. His fingers twitched, just itching to get a feel on those firm mounds, and his eyes narrowed speculatively as she just stared at him, her eyes like honeyed cinnamon, almost melting from the heat generated in his glance.

The air was electric between them, and working on impulse, as he always had, Kouga slowly tangled one swinging end of the robe's thick belt with his fingers, tugging lightly, playfully, leaving the choice hers, wondering if she would take the bait or run screaming...

**I show you how it go down, yeah, I wanna throw down---  
Me and you, one on one, treat it like a showdown.  
You look at me and I look at you,  
I'm reaching for your shirt---what you want me to do?  
**

His eyes were compelling, too compelling. Sango shivered, indecision etching icy tendrils down her spine even as her body yearned toward him and what that sexy smirk promised. Gods, she was losing it, big time, to even consider…

She blinked, surprised, as his claws played with the end of one sash, tugging lightly, his come-hither look too damn coaxing, that lop-sided smile slightly challenging. Her eyes flickered at the blatant dare-ya in his, and she bit her lip, uncertain for a moment, but he tugged once more, and that abruptly decided her.

**  
_Pussy Cat Dolls:_**

_**I'm telling you to loosen up my buttons, babe. (Uh huh)  
But you keep fronting, (Uh)  
Say what you gonna do to me, (Uh Huh)  
But I ain't seen nothing… (Uh)  
**_

Her body, tensed, stiff, spine straight as if she always had a rod shoved right up her ass, suddenly seemed to melt from one moment to the next, her demeanor softening toward him as her eyes turned all dewy and she stared at him with raw hunger, desire making her tremble slightly.

_Gotcha._

He knew he would, he always did. She had just taken a little longer than he had ever expected, but they all came to him, eventually. He had it like that. Irresistible, was what he was. _Damn_ irresistible. No woman could ever hope to stand up to it, they hadn't a chance in the world, the lovely little darlings. This one had been more stubborn than most, but he was patience itself, and see what had just come about? Here she was, yet another flower eager for the plucking, and he was going to make damn sure she never forgot how good he---plucked.

**  
_I'm telling you to loosen up my buttons, baby. (Uh huh)  
But you keep fronting me!  
Saying what you gonna do to me (Uh huh)  
But I ain't seen nothing!_**

She let out a breathy little sigh of anticipation as he slowly drew her closer, pulling her knotted belt in like a fishing line. Her knees shook slightly as she allowed him to reel her in, his claws dancing up to pluck lightly at the doubly-tightened knot she had made at her waist.

She dropped her eyes, a slight blush rising to stain her cheeks as she finally allowed her fingers to reach out and trace the firm contours of his chest as she had longed to do. The rumpled blue T-shirt, a shade darker than his heady gaze, was soft to the touch, the muscles hard and taut beneath it. Lightly feathering the tips of her fingers up his pecs to the defined crease of his collarbone and tanned throat, Sango watched in silent fascination at her own daring as she lightly touched his jaw. A firm, sculpted, stubborn jaw.

How could she have ever thought to resist him? And what the hell for, anyway? It wasn't as if she had to preserve her virginity or anything. Hell, that had been easy enough to get rid of when last she crossed paths with a sexy, blue-eyed hentai…

Sango slowly stilled, her eyes widening slightly at the sudden reminder.

**_  
_Typical---  
Hardly the type I fall for.  
I like when the physical,  
Don't leave me asking for more.  
**

Utterly oblivious to the sudden tension that held the taijiya frozen, Kouga hooked his claws in that convenient little knot at her waist and hauled her closer. Bending his head, eyes lowering so that only a tiny gleam of blue triumph shone from beneath his lowered lids, he focused on her parted lips, watching in hot interest as a small, pink tongue lightly laved the suddenly dry surface in nervous anticipation. Gods, he couldn't wait to put that delightful little tongue to better use…

**I'm a sexy mama, _(Mama…)_  
Who knows just how to get what I wanna. _(Wanna…)_  
What I want to do is spring this on ya, _(On ya…)_  
Back up all of the things that I told ya… _(Told ya, told ya, told ya…)_  
**

_"Damn you."_

Her fervent whisper hardly made a dent on his conscious mind, which was swamped by the sudden desire that flooded all his senses, sweeping away everything but the fact that there was a hot---damn hot---and willing woman trembling before him. Instinct alone saved him, for he saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his lowered gaze, mouth inches from those tantalizingly sweet lips, and his body reacted before his mind had even caught up with the fact that something had just gone most definitely wack in his universe.

Staring at her in surprise, his claws gripped her clenched fist, which she had just tried to deck him with.

"Stupid youkai. You think I would fall so easily for your shit? I done _told_ you I'm a taijiya, not some silly trick!"

"**Silly Ho" by TLC**

**_Whoot Whoot Whoot Whoooo  
Whoot Whoot Whoot Whoooo  
Whoot Whoot Whoot Whoooo  
Whoot Whoot Whoot Whoooo_**

What the fuck had just happened?

_Silly trick? What the _hell?

She jerked at her balled fist, caught fast in his claws. He glared at her, refusing to let go.

"Are you crazy? Silly trick? Why would I ever think that of you, _taijiya?"_ He spat that last word like an epithet, his eyes flashing ominously as he finally let go of her hand, which she gingerly shook, trying to ease the numb fingers and achy cramps his tight grip had caused as she returned his scowl with one of her own.

**I ain't never been no silly ho,  
Waiting for your call,  
Like the other girls want you.  
I ain't never been no one to mess  
With someone else's mess,  
That's not a thing for me to do.**

"Taijiya is right, and you should remember that, _youkai_," Sango said, furious at both of them for forgetting that simple fact. He was too persuasive for her own good, and although she was angrier with _her_ own body's stupid reactions to _his_ body's blatantly sexual appeal, he made too good a target for her fury.

Although her damn mouth said things she had never intended.

"I never asked for your help, demon."

Sango abruptly shut her mouth, now even more pissed at her stupid self. She had intended to say 'interest', not help. _Damn it!_

He raised an eloquent brow, his anger abruptly dissipating as she flushed. Crossing his arms, he regarded her with sardonic appraisal. "No, koi, you just brought it with you when you decided my club was a great spot to take up your little war with Naraku."

She drew herself up with a sharp breath, a flash in her dark eyes. Summoning what dignity she could wearing a bathrobe and a giant, oversized turban, she bowed formally, her words stiff but truly meant.

"That was unintentional, and I'm sorry."

He blinked, taken aback by both the sincerity that rung in her stiff words and the fact that her lopsided turban had decided it was fed up with all this shit and that escape was the lesser of two evils. She made an inarticulate noise as she grasped for her sliding towel, and he deftly caught the trailing end of it in his own claws, grinning at the comedy of the situation even as she flushed all the redder, her eyes almost black with annoyance.

"Damn it!" She almost stomped in her fury, though her ankle twinged at her in a sudden reminder just before she made an even bigger ass of herself. That damn youkai just grinned at her, fangs flashing, and she wanted to sit right down and howl. She was a taijiya, damn it, a warrior and a professional, not some inept little klutz who kept putting her foot right in the middle of it! It was all _his_ fault she was acting like a flustered little idiot. It wasn't _her_, damn it---calm, cool, collected Sango. She had been accused in the past for having ice for blood in her veins---though that description had hurt at the time, for it had come from someone who could hurt her deeply, and she wasn't about to ever let _that_ happen again…

**I ain't never been that chickenhead,  
To wake up in your bed  
After every club or two.  
Wanna be the one in mini skirts,  
Always wanna flirt,   
With every player on the team.  
**

"Are you done?"

She scowled at him, though a thick wet tangle of hair slapped her cheek and made her want to die with the utter humiliation she was feeling right now. Pride stung, she snapped back, "Isn't that usually _my_ line, wolf?"

He grinned, liking her ire. He liked baiting her, for she flushed and snarled and her pretty brown eyes got all glittery and so chocolate he could just about drown in them. "Maybe I like it."

Snatching back her towel and winding it back up over her wet hair, she frowned at him with irritated distraction. "What?"

Slightly put out that she wasn't still bent over putting that turban back on her head---a position ripe with delightful possibilities---he sighed. Gods, she was touchy. "Look, Sango, no matter what your original intentions---you're here now, and have to suffer my help, because, darling, I'm caught."

She blinked. "What?"

Wow, she could be dense. Had no one ever even tried to flirt with her ass before? He turned the surprising idea over in his mind, amused at the thought that it might very well be true, that her prickly personality might deter many a lesser man caught up by her pretty face and kicking curves. Well, they weren't he, and he had always liked a good challenge. He could be damned determined when he wanted to be, and he wanted it---bad.

With a wry smirk, he merely shrugged. She was looking at him as if he had lost his mind, and maybe he had. Oh, well. Fuck it. Caught was caught up---until something else took his passing fancy.

_Not damn likely, if she remains so tantalizingly near and yet so fucking suspicious._

Whatever.

"Look, koi, how 'bout you get dressed and come back out to the living room, where we can talk about this in better comfort with Kagome and Mutt-face? I ordered Chinese…" He smiled persuasively, knowing there was more than one way to get around a prickly porcupine.

Her eyes flickered toward the two shopping bags he had casually plopped on the counter when he first came into the bathroom and then back to him.

He raised a questioning brow, his blue eyes wicked as he waited for her dismissal.

Crossing her arms, she glared at him when he didn't immediately leave so she could get dressed in private. She probably thought her silent glare should be enough for him to get the idea, but he pretended to be oblivious. Her eyes darkened ominously, and he waited with toothy delight for the explosion.

"Damn it, wolf, are you going to stand there all fucking afternoon?" Her hands were on her hips now, and he was given a tantalizing view of sweet, creamy skin as her bathrobe parted a bit over her chest.

"Night," he replied mildly, a trifle distracted as her breasts heaved a little with her exasperation.

"What?" She was crossing her arms over her chest again. Damn.

Lazily raising his glinting blue eyes back to her narrowed brown gaze, he smiled. "It's night again, koi. You spent an awful long time in my shower. Wish I could have been there; you must have been enjoying yourself."

She'd finally had enough. "Get. Out."

Kouga knew when it was wise to retreat. Lifting his hands in a wide, open-palmed shrug, he gave her a nice pouty look that had worked on many another woman. "You sure? I could help you put on those panties I bought for you. I enjoyed shopping for them---I kept imagining just how they would look on you."

She made a sound that could not be described, though it was sufficiently outraged enough for him to quickly duck back out of the bathroom with a cheeky grin, the door slamming closed behind him with a decided _wham_.

Smirking, Kouga made his way back to the main room, his step confident and his blue eyes glinting. _Gotcha!_

_**If you really wanna find  
Someone to get some behind,  
I ain't the one for you.  
If you really wanna know,  
Boy, you need a silly ho,  
To do whatever you wanna do.**_

Holy gods, that wolf was the absolute end. Damn pervert. Like she would actually let him watch her get dressed---what the hell was his deal, anyway? It was as if he couldn't even hear her constant _"no way in hell"---_that, or he just conveniently chose to ignore it. He couldn't be that stupid…

Though maybe he just liked the challenge she represented. He was a wolf youkai, after all. A damned arrogant one, too---one used to getting his own way, in all things.

_Not this time, buddy. _Sango glared at the door, the slamming of which hadn't cooled off any of her futile anger, for it was self-directed and incessant.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could I be so damn _stupid? She mentally slapped herself as she let her breath out in a long, growlly sigh that did nothing to expel the anger either. Turning smartly on her good heel, she drew back to the long, unbroken mirror that covered the wall from sink to ceiling. Not that she couldn't look down into the sink or counter or floor and see her tile-scattered image glaring back up at her. This damn bathroom was as unreal as he was, something designed by Snow White's Evil Stepmother. _Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?_

Not her, for damn sure. Especially now, with the bruises from last night's fight still decorating her pallid skin. She didn't know why he seemed to be so caught up in her. It was probably just because she hadn't fallen for his shit, and he couldn't stand by and let someone ignore his game, which he had perfected to an art.

Stupid youkai.

Irritated, Sango pulled the loose towel from her head, allowing the damp tendrils of her long black hair to fall heavily across her back and shoulders. Combing her fingers through the heavy mass, she wondered if that youkai Don Juan had any more feminine gear than what he kept ever-ready in his shower. Pursing her lips, she pulled the first drawer she came to and with sour triumph, pulled out the brush of her preference amid a plethora of such items. The ass even had a hair dryer, curling and flat irons amid all the clutter.

She eyed the hair brush with suspicion, spying a long blonde hair among the bristles. Nice. _Real_ nice. Putting it back with more than a little distaste, Sango pulled out a large pick still stuck in its original package. It's Neiman-Marcus Frederic Fekkai package. She hadn't even known Neiman-Marcus _sold_ hair products. She usually got her own feminine implements---the few she used---from the dollar store. It was yet another poignant reminder that she was totally out of her depth here in this opulent palace of youkai depravity, and it would be far better for her peace of mind to get the hell out of here, the sooner the better…

The expensive conditioner she had used helped somewhat in combing out the unwieldy length of her long hair. Sango ran the comb through it, finally tying it back at the nape of her neck in a simple ponytail, not wanting to take the additional time to dry it with the blower. Curiosity finally got the better of her, and she attacked the two shopping bags Kouga had dumped on the counter. Lord knew what that damn wolf had done with her own clothes, and she wasn't about to climb back into her dirty underwear just out of a perverse need to show that damn youkai she wasn't one to be bought.

Besides, once she was decently dressed, she could go collect Kagome and get the hell out of here. She'd find some way to repay the ookami for all the trouble she'd put him to and make fast tracks out of New Tokyo. Now that Naraku's hit men knew where they were, it was imperative she get Kagome out of town as quickly as she could---

Sango gaped in complete and utter shock as she casually reached into the first shopping bag and pulled out a pair of red panties with strange additions never seen on a pair of cotton underwear _she_ had ever worn.

That fucking perv had bought her a pair of red, crotch-less panties. With cute, rosette snaps for thigh-high stockings and a thin strap to go up her butt like a thong.

He was fucking insane.

What next, a matching red bra with holes cut out for her nipples?

Dropping the red nightmare on the counter with a tight-lipped expression, Sango dug back into the bag, expecting something---anything---worse. Grimacing, she felt squishy plastic and pulled. She was back to looking like a stunned fish as she dragged out a package of simple, white, cotton underwear in her size.

"Huh?"

It was the last thing she had expected, especially after that rosette-strung, red example of demonic narcissism. Curious, Sango dug deeper, pulling out a simple ensemble of expensive, casual clothing, all in her exact size. She even had some choice---sports bra or cupped cotton, ankle socks or knee, two pairs of jeans, a few sleeveless undershirts and a long-sleeved sweater in pale blue. He had, of course, also included a dubious-looking nightgown of green satin and a T-shirt that made her laugh, so caught by surprise she couldn't help herself. Printed across the black cotton in pink letters was _"Don't give me your attitude, I already got my own."_

Okay, she had to give him credit. That was pretty good, and maybe she had earned it. Still, the guy was crazy to think she would ever need all this crap, though she was oddly pleased he had bought it all for her---unless he had a closet full of women's clothing in various sizes, ready to hand.

With that sour thought, Sango reached for the bag of underwear, slipping free of her damp robe and dropping it on top of her abandoned towel. Feeling as if she was suddenly intruding on the wolf's kindness, she jerked on a pair of jeans---Apple Bottoms, of course---and the cotton, cupped bra. Ignoring the silly T-shirt, she shrugged her way into the long-sleeved sweater. It was cashmere, of course, and as soft as a caress. The color was pale blue, the color of mild summer skies, and it clung to her body closer than she had anticipated. The deep V of the revealing neckline showed a little too much skin for Sango's taste, but she wasn't about to change out of the damn thing now that she had it on. She'd be able to change back into her own clothes once she got back to her shared efficiency on the poorer side of the city. She could put up with it until then.

Unconsciously rubbing the soft, slightly furry fabric of her long sleeves with the tips of her fingers, Sango shrugged, uncomfortable with her odd thoughts, which meandered between uneasy gratitude for the wolf's generosity and her anxious worry over what the perverted ookami might want in exchange. She wasn't one to ever rely on anyone else, and she didn't like being put in the position of owing anyone anything.

_Damn._

Ah, well, she wasn't getting anything done standing in here creeping herself out. Might as well go face the lion in his den, and find out just what the hell he intended towards them. He just might be surprised to find she wasn't one to be so easily bowled over by his funds or his slick, sexy self…

_**If you really wanna find  
Someone to get some behind,  
I ain't the one for you.  
If you really wanna know,  
Boy, you need a silly ho,  
To do whatever you wanna do…  
Oooh oooh.  
**_

Kagome sat on the couch, her bare feet propped up on the coffee table and her elbows on her bent knees as she rested her chin on her curled fists and distractedly stared into space, her mind troubled. She wondered how Sango was, and if she would be okay with the fact that the miko had all but agreed to the unspoken help Inuyasha and Kouga were offering them. Sango might very well be upset that Kagome had told them about their situation without consulting her first, but she had owed them the truth at least.

She owed them a whole lot more than that, and Kagome had a sneaking suspicion Sango wouldn't be too happy being put in the ookami's debt. But what else could she have done last night than what she had? Well, hell, she probably would have managed something or other---she wasn't as stupid or helpless as she often felt---but she was grateful that Kouga and Inuyasha had been there to help them out. She didn't always agree with the taijiya's borderline paranoia when it came to trusting other people. Sango had an ingrained need to prove that she could handle anything and everything on her own, without help, but Kagome knew that this shit they were in was bigger than either of them, and she was actually grateful that the decision had been taken out of Sango's hands by circumstance.

Though she just might be making up excuses to cover the fact that she really, really liked having a convenient excuse to continue staying with a certain, silver-haired hanyou. She didn't know why she had developed such intense feelings for him so suddenly. Almost instantly, it seemed, as she had first laid eyes on him in that club Kouga owned, she had known that she could trust him with more than her life. It was almost scary, when she thought about it, but she had always trusted her instincts, and wasn't going to start doubting them now. They had saved her from more trouble than even Sango truly knew.

She shivered slightly, remembering that darkly handsome face. Naraku had made her blood run cold as soon as she had laid eyes on him. She knew on a basic level that _he_ was evil incarnate, no matter how pretty the package he presented to the outside world. She could not explain how she knew, for the dark hanyou himself had been a rather mild-mannered gentleman in person, courteous but distant. There was just something in his eyes, a hunger that Kagome knew would reach out to devour her very soul if she so much as gave him the slightest excuse…

_Ugh. Best not to think of him._

She couldn't help but think of him, and shivered once more in icy recall.

"You okay?"

Kagome blinked at the golden-amber eyes that suddenly filled her vision.

"You cold or something?" He persisted when she didn't immediately say anything, dumbfounded that he had even noticed her slight trembling.

"Something," she said with a shy smile, her blue eyes softening as she looked up at him. He smirked, his amber eyes glowing a bit in the dim, recessed lighting of the sprawling living room. Kouga had thoughtfully turned the lights down, making the room feel cozier by contrast to the brilliant daylight that had lit the vast space earlier.

Inuyasha was juggling a couple of plates in one hand and a couple of cans in the other. Dropping them on the coffee table, he silently offered Kagome her preference of beer or soda. Selecting a diet with a smile of thanks, Kagome looked up as Kouga shut the front door, plastic bags rustling. She'd been sunk so deep into her own thoughts she hadn't even realized someone had been at the door.

"Dinner is served," Kouga said with a fanged grin, plopping the bags of Chinese take-out beside Inuyasha's scattered offering.

"Took 'em long enough," Inuyasha muttered grudgingly, casually dropping on the couch beside Kagome and taking up quite a bit of room. Dropping her knees, Kagome inched closer to the plushy armrest to give the hanyou more space, which he swallowed up immediately. Leaning forward, Inuyasha riffled through the bags, pulling out various boxes as Kouga separated fine china plates so thin and delicate you could almost see through the eggshell porcelain. They were rimmed in a thin gold line, and Kagome wondered how the ookami could be so callous with the fine flatware, which he held as Inuyasha dumped a mix of this and that across them.

Presenting one to Kagome with a flourish, Kouga winked. "G'on, angel-eyes. There's plenty."

"Thanks," Kagome smiled back, though Inuyasha growled something unintelligible under his breath, his eyes narrowed on the irrepressible wolf as he thrust a pair of chopsticks at her like a dagger.

Taking the proffered weapon, Kagome bit her lip, wondering what had ticked him off so suddenly. Tense silence descended on the small group as she fumbled with her plate, wondering what she had done and uncertain what to do about it.

Kouga, noticing the miko's agitation, said rather mildly, "Nice move, dumb ass."

Inuyasha's ears twitched. He scowled back at the ookami, who smirked. Catching sight of Kagome's confusion, the hanyou muttered, his mouth full, "Sorry."

Kagome blinked, the tensed line of her shoulders relaxing as she smiled shyly up at him. "There's nothing to apologize for."

"Feh." Inuyasha stared broodingly at his plate before spearing another bit of marinated beef, ignoring the steamed broccoli that came with the entrée.

Kouga suddenly looked up and back over his shoulder. Kagome, catching sight of Sango, who hesitated at the opened door to the ookami's room, cheerfully waved her forward with her chopsticks, trying to swallow a mouthful of rice so she could speak. "Sango-chan, it's all right. We've just started eating."

Sango actually bit her lip, something that made Kagome blink, and finally crept out, her dark eyes darting around the giant room. A look of surprised chagrin crossed over her features before her gaze finally settled on the black-haired ookami, who had stood up as she drew into the room. Kagome was surprised at how hesitant and nervous the young taijiya seemed, as if she was a bit over-awed by what she saw, and didn't know what to do about it.

_Wow. Thank God I'm not the only one._ Kagome felt less like an idiot, seeing how nervous Sango actually was. It wasn't something so obvious to someone who didn't truly know the slayer, but it was there, in the slight, fidgety movement of her fingers---self-consciously gripping the ends of her long sleeves---and in the slight drag to her graceful stride, as if she was somewhat reluctant to join them.

Kagome smiled, delighted at how pretty the slayer looked in the fuzzy sweater. It softened the hard lines Sango usually seemed to have, as if she was always wearing armor under her unending collection of drab-colored hoodies and tattered, baggy jeans. It was the exact color of Kouga's eyes, and Kagome blinked as she realized that maybe that wasn't true---because Kouga's eyes had darkened slightly on seeing the taijiya, his approval tacit as his eyes wandered slowly over her frame.

"Heh," Inuyasha made an amused noise, staring at the preoccupied ookami. Sango flushed, and Kagome nudged the hanyou with her knee, her look warning him to keep it down. Kagome knew Sango would already be far too uncomfortable in such a situation. She didn't need Inuyasha to dig on her like that.

He gave her an unrepentant grin, and sat back on the couch, oozing even closer to her without even appearing to move a muscle. Ignoring him, Kagome smiled tentatively at her friend.

Kouga broke the ice with a casual, "Hungry?"

Sango took the filled plate extended towards her, and gingerly sat on the other side of the couch, keeping a few inches of careful space between her and the hanyou. Inuyasha ignored her to poke at some of the opened boxes on the coffee table, looking for something completely protein and thus edible.

"It's really good." Kagome tried to fill in the silence with the banal, giving Sango a few minutes to collect herself. Kouga sank into an easy sprawl on the floor to the left of the taijiya, casually proffering her a pair of chopsticks.

"Thank you." Sango's voice was soft, the normally hard edge missing. Kagome stirred uneasily, giving her best friend an anxious look. The taijiya avoided the miko's searching glance, keeping her eyes on her plate as silence fell and Inuyasha continued to poke at the opened boxes of Chinese food.

"Didn't you get anything good, wolfie?" The hanyou demanded with irritation, finally settling on an unopened box of chow mein.

"You should eat more veggies, dog-boy. They're good for you," Kouga answered, spearing Mongolian beef and ignoring the stewed mushrooms.

"Yes, mommy," Inuyasha simpered back, pushing his vegetable-laden plate aside so he could chuck noodles right out of the box.

"They _are_ good for you," Kagome said, a little desperately, for the tension surrounding Sango was almost palpable. The taijiya pushed her food around her plate without tasting anything, and she had her head down, not really paying attention to any of them.

Kouga laid a clawed hand on the girl's bent knee. "Everything all right, koi? If you don't really like Chinese, I can get you something else."

Sango jerked, as if his hand on her knee burned. Amazingly, Kouga kept it there, though she twitched again. Kagome had to give him points for persistence, even if it was rather stupid on his part. Sango didn't take kindly to being touched too much. She was a past master of evasion.

"You can remove your claws from my leg, youkai."

Even Kagome was a bit taken aback by the acid in Sango's voice. She stared, chopsticks arrested in mid-air, waiting to see what Kouga would do.

"Are you sure you want me to, darling?" A single claw lightly traced a spiraling pattern up the taijiya's thigh, the look in the ookami's eyes hot enough to scorch.

Sango's eyes were hotter, and not from desire. "We're going, Kagome. _Now_."

Dropping her plate on the small end-table beside her, Sango swept up the back of the couch, away from where the ookami sprawled on the floor blocking her way, and adroitly slipped over the back. She stood behind the couch, waiting for Kagome to comply with her terse order.

Biting her lip, Kagome avoided the taijiya's eyes. Catching a glance of Inuyasha, who now waited for what _she_ would do, she took courage from those thoughtful amber eyes, and for the first time ever, put her foot down---though she might come to regret it later.

"No."

Hell, she might even regret it now, for the look of hurt in Sango's eyes almost made her change her mind. Almost, but not quite.

"Kagome?" Sango's voice was soft, a slight note of pleading in the short question.

"Uh…no. Sango, we need help." Kagome looked up at her friend, hoping for her understanding.

Sango's expression hardened. "We don't need help."

Kagome sighed, frustrated by the taijiya's stubborn denial of the facts. "Sango-chan, we already had this argument last night…or the night before…whatever…when you tried to talk me out of going looking for Inuyasha, even though Kikyou recommended we seek him out if we were ever in dire straits."

"We're not in dire straits," Sango said mutinously, crossing her arms and taking up her Stubborn Bitch stance.

"You're not?" Kouga interrupted, his mouth quirked to one side.

"Stay out of this, wolf." Sango didn't even spare the ookami a glare. Trying for persuasion, she said coaxingly, "Kagome…"

"Sango, _don't_." Kagome said it a bit too sharply, desperate to keep her mind made up. She didn't like hurting Sango, but the taijiya would never admit that the situation had grown beyond their ability to handle, and enough was _enough_. Naraku's minions had found them too easily this time, and what would happen the next, when there would be no obliging youkai and hanyou to help them out? She lacked---for now---the necessary skills and training to use her spiritual powers, and Sango, though she was a good fighter, was still only one woman against too many to count.

Now was as good a time as any to grow some balls and put her foot down, for _both_ their sakes. Firming her chin, Kagome raised her head and glared back at her best friend, who always thought she knew best, and should know better that she could be just as wrong as anybody else.

Sango didn't have the answers to everything, damn it, and Kagome was done nursing that prickly pride. She was tired of sitting back and letting Sango make all the decisions just because it was easier, and she was scared. Scared enough to want to freeze like a rabbit and pretend that maybe everything was okay, that her quiet world hadn't fallen apart, that her family was all right and that Naraku wasn't after her ass. She wished suddenly, fervently, that she could just go home and pick up the pieces of her life like nothing had ever really happened to shatter it…

But that was sticking her head in the dirt like one of those damn ostriches portrayed on cable cartoons, and Kagome was tired of it. Tired of it all---the terror and the unknown, the constant fear nipping at their heels that Naraku had found them and that _this_ time his filthy fanatics might succeed in taking Sango out and capturing her, meager prize that she was. Kagome, for one, was fed up with running. Perhaps it was time for her to get her head out of the dirt and take a chance to flip the script on that evil little bastard.

This just might be the perfect chance for them to turn the tables on Naraku, and not simply wait for him to catch them up. Maybe it was time for them to take the fight to _him_, something that twisted little tyrant would never expect them to do…

It was an audacious idea, if she thought hard about it, but Kagome---still scared stiff by the thought of what evil that foul hanyou was capable of, but unwilling to be frozen into inaction anymore by that same fear---was willing to give it a try, if _they_ were willing. Who knew what resources Inuyasha and Kouga could command, or even if they would be willing to use them on their behalf. It wasn't _their_ fight, after all. Naraku had never shown any particular desire to push past his own borders, once he had fermented the youkai rebellion that had overthrown the old ningen regime that had always governed the isolated city-state of Kyoto in one bloody night of unholy terror that had killed thousands of innocent people, both youkai _and_ human.

But Kagome knew instinctively that Naraku would never be satisfied to have just one quelled city-state under his iron claw. That dark hanyou's ambitions would soon look to the east and south, where New Tokyo lay nestled in the mountains like a shiny jewel of taunting defiance, its strange democracy and easy mix of both ningen and youkai living side by side and completely happy with that fact too insulting a lure for the hanyou to pass up. Naraku could not go west, for those lands were held by the formidable inu, their Lord, Sesshoumaru, too powerful for Naraku to even consider tangling with. The northlands were a devastated wasteland of starving villages and marauding bands of city exiles, where the old wars that had ripped apart the old nations of Earth in the last century had punched the hardest. The old cities of Tokyo and Kyoto were now only glowing piles of nuclear rubble, hideous testament to the careless ambitions of the continent-spanning nation-states of the past…

She might be able to persuade Kouga and Inuyasha to help them, with that argument. She wasn't sure, though---especially about Kouga. She couldn't quite trust him as she could Inuyasha. Harboring a pair of fugitives in his palatial penthouse was one thing; helping them trap a known mob boss and youkai despot was quite another…

**I ain't never been no silly bitch,  
Waiting to get rich  
From a man's bank account.  
I have always had my own things,  
Bought my own rings,  
Not gonna let you catch me out. **

She was a grown woman, entitled to make her own decisions.

Really.

It was good Kagome was finally standing up for herself and coming to her own conclusions, voicing her own opinions and making her own decisions. Sango had always wanted her to, feeling the weight of responsibility for both of them as a heavy burden at times on shoulders grown too weary. Part of her wanted to stand up and cheer that Kagome---shy, tentative, sweet and yet sometimes, _too_ innocent Kagome---was finally making a stand, and a firm one at that.

But did she have to do it _now_?

Of all the times and all the places---and with all the people--_damn_. Just---_damn_.

Sango twitched, feeling like an alien in her own skin, and not liking it one bit. It was disgusting how simply being out of her own clothes and her own comfort zone could mess with her confidence so damn much…

**You should take a lesson from me,  
I ain't the one to be  
Depending on someone else.  
I can run a scam before he can.  
Better than a man,  
I always keep my game on dis.  
**

Sango didn't know what to do---something not new, certainly, but something rarely experienced. She didn't know whether to be mad or hurt that Kagome didn't trust her skills enough to protect her, and suddenly felt that aching, hollow feeling deep in her chest, a familiar feeling that she wasn't good enough, would _never_ be good enough…

She hadn't been able to protect her family and her friends, she had been too weak and too fucking caught up in her own stupid shit over Miroku at the time, and she knew Kagome was right not to trust her, fucked up as she was. She had tried, ever since her father and brother and friends were slaughtered, to prove that she was capable, that she could handle, that she had gotten past it and over it---but it was pathetically obvious that she hadn't, if she was taking all this crap personally.

Self-recrimination wasn't getting her anywhere, and Kagome was her best friend. She would be the _last_ person to ever think less of her, and weeping over past fuck-ups wasn't going to help her deal with what was going on _now_---which was Kagome going straight off the deep end, thinking a big-pimpin' hairball of a wolf youkai and a spoiled brat of a dog-eared half-demon were even going to want to help them out.

_Maybe to the door… _

If only it were that easy.

But Kouga had already insinuated that she would have to suffer his help, because she was here, and he was caught up, or whatever stupid crap he said back there in the bathroom. 'Course, he might just be saying that to get inside her pants, perv that he was. He was probably only amusing himself right now, petting that enormous male ego of his that he could rescue the frightened little girlies out of their little old messy-mess and right on their way without too much trouble on his part.

Sango thought sardonically that that particular game would get tiresome right quick for the wayward, ADD-having wolf, and as he probably had the relative attention span of a gnat, he would eventually grow bored when she didn't give it up to him, and want them gone so he could go looking for easier prey.

Still, it didn't sit well with her that she would have to play the stupid game and go along with Kagome's wishes until that damn wolf and that arrogant little hanyou decided they had grown tired of them. Kagome was going to be in a world of hurt once that hanyou tired of her. Sango could see how intent Kags was on the silver-haired mongrel, and if that bratty bastard broke the miko's innocent little heart, Sango would gut him---with a sharpened spork.

Gods, this whole thing just stunk, and she didn't like it one bit. But Kags had put her foot down, and Sango wasn't about to abandon her friend just because she got the damn fool idea in her head that these two players were actually sincere in their offer (or whatever it was) to help them out. Once the shit got deep, those prissy little rich boys would take a flying leap, leaving Kagome hurt and bewildered and Sango would be there to pick up the pieces and do what she had always done, which was deal.

Until then, she just had to grit her teeth and pretend to go along with it. It was a good thing she had always been good at disassembling, and so she could pretend to give in---for now.

Pasting a smile on her face that looked rather like a grimace, right down to the clenched teeth, Sango said brightly, nearly choking, "Okay, Kagome. Whatever you want to do is fine by me. If those big, strong men want to help us poor little weak girls out, than who am I to stand in their way?"**  
**

_**If you really wanna find  
Someone to get some behind,  
I ain't the one for you.  
If you really wanna know,  
Boy, you need a silly ho,  
To do whatever you wanna do.  
**_

They stared at her as if she had just grown a third eye or something right in the middle of her forehead. Sango scowled, before remembering that particular look wouldn't quite work with the Silly Bitch Needing Help and Loves to Giggle persona she was trying to present. Well, it was not quite Silly Bitch Needing Help and Loves to Giggle. More like Silly Bitch Needing Help and Agrees With Whatever You Say, O Lord and Master…

Forcing a vapid expression on her face, Sango snarled, "What?"

_**If you really wanna find  
Someone to get some behind,  
I ain't the one for you.  
If you really wanna know,  
Boy, you need a silly ho,  
To do whatever you wanna do…  
Oooh oooh.**_

Kouga didn't know whether to laugh or howl at the taijiya's expression. It was pretty funny watching those facial contortions the poor girl was struggling with. She looked rather off---her eyes wide and innocent, even batting her long lashes in classic bewilderment---though the brown depths were dark and glittering with the anger she couldn't ever hide, bless her beautiful little stupid self. That grimace of a blinding-white smile looked like she would grind the enamel right off her teeth if she kept at it, and---oh gods, was she now trying to shrug helplessly? She looked like she was a puppet jerked about on strings---her back stiff, her spine straight, her shoulders jumping up and down like she was doing the Robot, and flapping her hands in front of her as if she didn't know what the hell to do with them.

He tried to keep a straight face, but Inuyasha, the fucking dog, did him in. There was a muffled snort, as if Mutt-face didn't know what the hell to say, and it sent Kagome over the edge, for she let out a high twitter she tried to hide behind her raised hand, her blue eyes blinking back tears as she coughed.

Unable to help himself, Kouga leaned against the couch cushions beside him, closed his eyes, put his head in his hands, and howled for all he was worth. **_  
_**  
**_If you really wanna find  
Someone to get some behind,  
I ain't the one for you.  
If you really wanna know,  
Boy, you need a silly ho,  
To do whatever you wanna do._**

Their reaction wasn't quite what Sango had been aiming for. Dropping the Silly Bitch act without a backward thought, she crossed her arms over her chest and glowered as all three of them fell into a howling fit of the giggles they could not seem to stop, though they tried. They tried in vain, aware that she was getting more irate by the second, but one look at her dark scowl---or even a sidelong glance at each other---would set them all off again.

Kagome was on the couch, hugging her arms around herself as the tears fairly ran down her face. Her funny little snorts had the hanyou rumbling deep in his chest as he banged a clawed fist on the back of the couch, his guffaws growing louder by the minute. Kouga, sprawled on the floor beside them, had his head in his hands, his lithe body shaking as his growlly laugh shook the cushion beneath him.

Sango watched as they continued to laugh at her. Mouth thinning and pride stung, she abruptly spun on her heel---thank the kami, her good one---and exited the room with what dignity she could, spine stiff and nails digging into her upper arms as she stalked off, head raised and expression tight.

_**  
If you really wanna find  
Someone to get some behind,  
I ain't the one for you.  
If you really wanna know,  
Boy, you need a silly ho,  
To do whatever you wanna do…  
Oooh oooh.  
**_

Kouga sat up, his mirth dying as he watched the taijiya stalk from the living room, her spine stiff and her head held high. Pulled up as if by invisible strings, he flowed up to his feet and followed her, the laughter behind him growing muffled and then silent as he lazily strolled back inside his bedroom, where the taijiya had disappeared.

He heard a muffled question of feminine concern behind him and Inuyasha's muttered deterrent. Kagome, ever sensitive to the feelings of others, would want to come and comfort her friend, offering a thousand and one abject apologizes he knew instinctively that the prickly slayer would not want.

Hell, she probably wouldn't want him in there either, but that would never stop _him_.

Closing the door firmly behind him, he casually leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest and his blue gaze level on the woman who had whirled defensively at the sudden noise.

"What the hell do _you_ want?"

It was hardly the sweetest of greetings, but the question was too broad for him not to take the bait.

Fangs flashing and eyes wicked, he replied lazily, "You."

She looked ready to kill him. Beautiful, that.

**You know you can't get with this.  
One night you just  
Go and must find a ho   
To give it up.  
Why you even try your luck?  
**

"ARGH!" Sango felt her anger rising to unbelievable heights, and she wanted to grab that aggravating wolf by the neck and squeeze until his face turned blue. "You are the most aggravating man I have ever met!"

"Not a man," he reminded her with a nasty grin.

"Gods! Do you ever quit?" Sango wanted to punch something, preferably him. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides as she struggled with the sudden, fierce desire to do just that. Kami, he knew how to get right under her skin and press all her buttons, damn him!

He seemed to consider her question thoughtfully. He even rubbed his jaw, pressing his index finger to his pursed lips. Discomfited, Sango watched him, oddly fascinated as the long, supple finger with its sharp claw swept up and back across the sensual line of his mouth. He actually had sexy lips, almost too pouty to be considered truly masculine.

To be frank, he had better lips than she did, and Sango scowled, not liking the idle comparisons her befuddled mind could hit her with at the most inappropriate times.

"No," he finally said, smiling faintly as her brow wrinkled in confusion.

"What?"

She had lost the conversation, and could smack herself as he reminded her with a slow, sensual drawl, picking himself up off the door and sauntering towards her with a lazy, panther's grace, "I never do quit, koi."

His voice was lowered to a sexy growl and he had come to stand so close to her that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. She didn't like the way the position made her feel, as if she were so much smaller and weaker than he.

Stepping back to put some distance between them, Sango snapped irritably, "Probably not, fucked in the head as you are."

"Darling, why you have to be so mean all the time, eh?" He reached a claw out to lightly touch her shoulder. Sango flinched away, as if shot. "I would never hurt you."

"Hmph." Sango rolled her eyes over that obvious lie and beat a hasty retreat around the curving steps of the raised dais, scooting away from the youkai's overwhelming presence. Trying to appear nonchalant, she slowed her steps as she slid around the wide bed, seeking anything to steer the conversation from rather dangerous territory.

Kouga's sprawling bedroom was laid in a three-quarter circle, the cut-out abstract designs of hung mirrors lining the flat side, where the doors to the bathroom and the rest of the apartment were located. Thick beige curtains hid the curving outer wall, and Sango laced her hands in the folds of one, trying to draw it aside to see what lay beneath. No telling, with that crazy wolf.

There was a light, mechanical whirr somewhere above her head, and Sango's outstretched fingers jerked back as the heavy curtains stirred restlessly, the draping folds swinging apart as the automated system designed for the purpose pulled them back. Glancing over her shoulder with some surprise, she saw Kouga's claws touching a small panel placed into the wall between two of the abstract mirrors, a panel she had taken for a light switch. Which it also was, for she watched him turn the dial down so that the recessed lighting along the ceiling darkened to dim shadows, allowing the light-spangled night beyond the glass windows to burst into life.

Turning her startled attention back to the wide glass wall revealed by the opened drapes, Sango gasped in delighted astonishment. "Oh."

The circling wall was one wide window, from floor to mirrored ceiling, a small balcony beyond a dark blur of shadowed grey stone below a similar glass expanse of silver railing. The revealed skyline of New Tokyo at night all but took her breath away, for the lights of the city, skyscrapers and elegant spires reaching toward the distant stars of the clear night sky, was something she had never expected when scuffing her way along the dirty grey streets by day. It was…awesome, and awe-inspiring, for it was something that man and youkai had made together, imprinting their hand on the world around them.

"You like?" Kouga had slid up behind her in the shadowy darkness of the inner room. Sango stirred a bit, slightly irritated that he had to intrude on the moment and her wonder. She didn't like getting caught with her guard down.

"Care to go outside? The view's better." His claws curled lightly around her left hip as he casually leaned past her to flick open the complicated locks. His strong bicep brushed her upper arm and right shoulder as he pushed slightly at the seamless glass door, which slid silently along its track. A waft of surprisingly fresh, cold air gently blew inside the opened room, and Sango adroitly slipped out of the youkai's light embrace to step outside.

She had never been really scared of heights, but she felt a weird sense of vertigo as she stepped out onto the glass-encircled balcony. A thin metal line of simple steel capped the fragile barrier that did nothing to reassure her that anything was there, though the faint lights of the room behind them were dimly reflected in the glassy surface. The stone beneath her socks was slightly uneven and gritty, and definitely chilly after the thick, padded carpet of the inner bedroom. Sango shifted her weight from one foot to the other, uneasily aware that there was nothing but a thin barrier of fragile glass between her and the vast space beyond.

_Great. Now I'm scared of heights? Jeez, I sure am batting a thousand tonight, aren't I? No wonder they were all laughing at me!_

Jaw growing stubborn, Sango deliberately slid toward the outer railing, her seeking hands curling around the reassuring metal rail, which was icy to the touch and made her shiver involuntarily.

"Cold?" Kouga drew up behind her, his breath a puff of wispy white condensation that clouded out over her left ear. Sango automatically inched closer to the rail, casually trying to appear that she wasn't by deliberately leaning forward to look over the edge. It was an impressive sight, for the lit street beneath them was far enough down to make the cars and people seem like crawling ants.

"Wow."

"Quite a sight, ain't it?" Kouga's throaty voice whispered somewhere above her head, and Sango stiffened as she felt his broad hands on her hips, his fingers spreading from her ribs to the dip of her low-slung jeans, claws tangling in the fuzzy cashmere of her clingy sweater.

"Can't you stop your shit for one damn minute?" Sango growled back, angry that he would intrude with his silly game and catch her---once again---with her guard down.

He actually leaned forward to lightly nuzzle the side of her neck, his voice a heated whisper against the delicate shell of her ear. "Nope."

**Stuck on silly shit,  
Boy, you know you need to quit.  
Ain't the one for all this---  
You missed out.  
**

Sango counted to ten. Slowly. It was said to help.

It didn't do a damn thing.

The fucking wolf was still there, his hot breath chuckling in her ear as she closed her eyes and gamely tried for a hundred.

Only to lose her count somewhere at twenty or so when he lightly kissed her neck, making her shiver for quite another reason than the chilly night air as his claws tightened possessively on her waist. She stiffened, ready to turn and belt him one with the back of her hand, but he cracked through that one as well with his next wicked little whisper.

"You know, taijiya, they call me Mandingo."

Eyes widening into incredulity, Sango turned her head to stare at him.

He smiled crookedly, a single fang gleaming in the faint light from the bedroom behind them.

Elbowing him sharply in the side---which made him wince and let her go to grab at his aching stomach---Sango whirled on her heel and stomped back into the room, her holler carrying out into the uncaring night, making the ookami chuckle even as he winced as the taut muscles of his stomach pulled at the bruise she had just given them.

"I'm done! I'm _so_ damn _done!"_

**I'm I'm I'm out  
I'm out I'm out out out  
I'm I'm I'm out out  
I'm I'm out  
I'm out out out…**

Not yet, she wasn't. Because _he_ wasn't yet done with _her_.

……………………………

_Additional A/N: Quick translation, when a guy claims to called Mandingo, he means he's swinging a big bat…or a long schlong, whichever you prefer. I have to thank my friend LaTausha for that one, and her tormenting coworker. Thanks Whitney! XP_

_Also, I'm pimping both IYFanguild and Inuyasha-Angel's artwork. She has a sweet touch with IY characters, and I adore this Sango/Bankotsu she drew off an idea of mine. To view her work, go to:_

_h t t p / w w w . d e v i a n t a r t . c o m /deviation/43381045/?qo5&qby3Ainuyasha-angel&qhsort3Atime+-in3Ascraps_

_(take the spaces out of the first part)_

_To join IYFanguild, which awards good Inuyasha fanfiction every quarter, just link to:_

_h t t p / g r o u p s . y a h o o . c o m / g r o u p / i y f a n g u i l d /_

_(take out the spaces)_


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or the song by Jim Jones that I have used for this chapter. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

**DON'T HATE THE GAME**

_A/N - It's been a looong time. I had most of this chapter typed out, but lost interest in the story. I apologize for the roughness of this chapter, I finally decided to post as is after spending hours editing and driving myself nuts. I don't know if I will continue this story, I'm still debating, though I keep hearing some really awesome songs I could use for it. ) I must warn that this chapter is VERY dark. Naraku is a sick character to write. I enjoyed the darkness while being surprised at the depths my darker bunnies could hop. (Fate)_

WARNING! NC17 VERY, VERY DARK AND EXPLICIT CONTENT! (SLIGHT EDIT ON FFNET FOR LEMON CONTENT, STILL DARK LIME, BE WARNED!)

"**We Fly High" by Jim Jones**

**  
**_**We fly high, no lie, you know this. (Balling!)  
Foreign rides, outside, it's like showbiz. (We in the building!)  
We stay fly, no lie, and you know this. (Balling!)  
Hips and thighs, oh my, stay focused.  
**_

Smoke lay like a thick, billowing blanket under the dim lighting of the club's VIP room. Sitting back at his ease against the padded red velvet, the dark-haired man in the expensive white suit flicked the nervous blonde waitress away with a negligent wave of his be-ringed hand. She went quick, as they all did, her steps faltering a bit in the suicidal stilettos never meant for anything other than short, mincing steps.

The busty blonde waitress would have suffered heart palpitations to know that the slight stumble in her step had drawn the man's lazy attention, his red eyes narrowing slightly as they glided up the long length of her fishnet stockings. She paused as one of the other males sprawled around the lounge waved her over, growling out his terse order as his companion casually leaned forward to touch the back of her thigh in a lingering caress. The waitress jumped, her mascara-lined eyes wide as she bit her lip and moved out of the youkai's reach, her silver pen flashing as she scrawled out the other's order.

The interplay between the nervous blonde and his two youkai bodyguards drew the dark-haired man's wandering interest, and he licked his lips slightly as he eyed the blonde's rather obvious charms. They were all but spilling out of her low-cut French maid's outfit like a pair of overripe peaches and trembled slightly with the nervous rapidity of her quickened breath.

He wasn't the only one eyeing the little onna. Her hammering heartbeat drew more than a few interested glances of smirking speculation. The youki in the smothering, smoke-filled room seemed to swirl around her, nipping at her fright, and she was more than a little relieved to finally flee, all but running by the time she made it to the door.

Interesting. That blonde had shown a surprising capacity for emotion not usually found in the hardened staff of this particularly discreet club. She must be new, then, or was as yet untainted by the dual daggers of lust and greed that always permeated a night club of this kind--if the free drugs and drink didn't corrupt them first. He must remember her name--Andie or Audrey or something stupid like that--and ask for her…specifically.

He contemplated a neatly manicured claw, the heavy ruby at the base winking sullenly--and bloodily--in the dim, murky lights. He smiled slightly, contemplating to what heights of pain and terror he might take the luscious little blonde--and almost followed his initial inclination to follow her out and just take her, right now, while she was still unnerved by his youkai's attentions, but there was a slight disturbance near the door, and he frowned, recognizing what it herald.

He sighed, slightly put out. Being top dog always had its dirty jobs. Eyes narrowing on the bony little man being thrust forward between two of his tougher youkai, the dark-haired man leisurely stood, his white suit shining faintly between the darker colored threads his men favored. The bony little man's eyes bulged as he was forcefully shoved forward so that he fell on his knees at the hanyou's polished black wingtips.

**  
Your boy getting paper **_**(Money!),**_** I buy big cars. **_**(Foreign!)**_**  
I need fly rides to drive in my garage**_**. (Choose one!)**_**  
Stay sky high **_**(Twisted!), **_**fly with the stars… **_**(Twinkle, twinkle…)**_**  
T 4? Flights, eighty grand large. **_**(Balling!)  
**_**So we lean with it, pop with it. **_**(Bankhead!)  
**_**'Vertible Jones, mean with the top, listen. **_**(Flossing!)**_**  
I'm staying clean with the bottom, yeah. **_**(Do it!)  
**_

"But, Naraku--Mr. Onigumo--I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

Protests were useless, but they always seemed to think whining about their fate might spark some pity or compassion within him.

Pity they were always so wrong. He did like to play with them, though, drawing the hope out of them until that last little bit of savory wonder--the desperate hope that they just might survive the encounter--and then finishing with that last wash of incredibly delicious despair, when they finally realized that no, they wouldn't…

**I hopped out, saggy jeans and my rock glistening, **_**(Balling!)**_**  
But I spent about eight grand.  
Mami on stage doing the rain dance, **_**(I think she like me…)**_**  
She let it hit the floor, made it pop-- **_**(What else?)**_**  
Got my pedal to the floor screaming 'Fuck!' at the cops. **_**(Do it!)  
**_

It had been rather messy, in the end. The man had screamed like a girl, especially when Naraku had grown tired of those bulging eyes full of stark terror and arbitrarily decided to remove them.

_Sad. _The bony little man had been weak, and rather pathetic. A shame, really. The dark hanyou had been all primed for a delectable little feast of singular pain and terror, but that incompetent fool had died too quickly for Naraku to derive any true pleasure from his death, damn him. _How disappointing._

Bailey had been as inept in dying as he had been as a mule while living. One who spoke too often and spoke too much, one whose loyalties were always divided between his need for crack and his need for money to get the crack that kept him going.

_Damn junkie._

Flicking the man's blood off of his claws, Naraku waited impatiently for one of his men--Goshinki, the brute--to hand him a damp towelette. Distastefully wiping his fingers clean, Naraku grew more irritated upon seeing the stupid little club owner. He was babbling incoherently that he couldn't keep this quiet, no matter how many G's they used to pay him off. The slow, grinding music kept playing in the background as the strippers on stage desperately tried to keep the focus of the packed sheep in the lower floor on _them_ and off what had just occurred on the VIP level.

They were smarter than the club owner. He was signing his own death warrant the more he babbled.

"Mr. President--Onigumo-sama--" The man tried to appeal to the white-suited figure directly, but the hanyou paid him no attention, having spotted a bit of dark stain blemishing the pristine cuff of his sports coat.

How incredibly tedious.

Unbuttoning the offensive jacket, Naraku let it fall on the floor behind him as he slid out of it. "Bring me another," he snapped at the nearest soldier lazing around on his dime. Snapping a hasty salute, the nameless youkai rose to obey.

"Onigumo-sama…" The pleading whine was getting on his last nerve.

"Kill him," he ordered Goshinki, who grinned toothily at the unsought reward, his red eyes glowing happily.

There was a whimper behind him, and a choked scream abruptly cut off.

The dancers on stage kept dancing, their naughty aerobatics not quite enough to keep a few customers from glancing nervously over their shoulders toward the disturbance taking place in the VIP room. The smart ones kept their eyes on the stage show, and Naraku calmly took a mental tally of the foolish gawkers as he straightened the midnight-blue silk collar of his buttoned shirt.

"Four youkai for sixteen men should be sufficient, I think," he suggested mildly, waiting for the smarter lieutenants of his thug army to catch on. After a terse moment, four youkai silently peeled themselves from the hungry group and made their way below. Screams rose, and a dancer shrieked as the man right in front of her abruptly disappeared, his blood spraying across her face. The youkai grinned up at her as she tried to back-pedal away, and that sent the others running for whatever cover they could find. Chaos erupted inside the strip club as Naraku waved the other youkai forward to take care of the rest.

Blood flowed, and Naraku watched with idle amusement at the bloody massacre unfolding before him.

How sweet.

**  
**_**We fly high, no lie, you know this. (Balling!)  
Foreign rides, outside, it's like showbiz.  
We stay fly, no lie, and you know this. (Balling!)  
Hips and thighs, oh my, stay focused.  
**_

The youkai returned with a new coat about the time Naraku was ready to leave. Allowing the underling to assist him into the crisp white sports coat, Naraku then motioned him to join the others in finishing off the last denizens of the club. What a waste. He had always liked this particular strip joint. It was classy, well, comparatively speaking. Damn shame to lose it.

"Burn it," he ordered tersely as the side door was opened for his discreet exit. The youkai nodded with a feral glint in his reddened eyes.

"Mr. President?" The voice was soft, deferential.

Naraku turned at the opened door of the stretch limo, which was held open by yet another of his silent guards.

"Yes, Juuroumaru, what is it?" His voice was testy, for he knew this particular youkai, bloodthirsty as he was, was also dangerous. As long as Naraku kept him and his brother Kageroumaru's unholy appetites fed, he held their loyalty. The moment they ran out of victims, though…

"I brought you a gift." Juuroumaru jerked on the thin wrist he held tight in his claws, and the busty blonde waitress from earlier stumbled forward to hit the side of the black limo with a thud and a wince. Her heels were missing, her stockings torn. One nipple peeked out of the slight tear in her bodice, and her hair was a platinum tangle. A faint streak of blood was smeared across her forehead.

She trembled, too terrified to speak as the dark hanyou looked at her greedily.

Poor little rabbit.

"You did well, Juuroumaru." Naraku smiled thinly as the youkai bowed. Facetious little ass-kisser.

He considered the terrified blonde, almost as if she were a fine delicacy and he didn't know quite where to start. He abruptly decided that soothing her would be best, so that he could draw out her deepening despair all the more as she abruptly realized the inevitability of her fate.

"Little rabbit, you have nothing to fear from me. It was by my orders that your life was spared. I was so taken with your beauty--how could I not? You are…delicious." He reached out a finger to gently touch her cheek. The blonde shook like a leaf in the wind at his touch, but there was a faint spark of hope in the light blue eyes that darted back and forth, looking for any escape. Finding none, she bit her lip and stared at him, uncertain, but hesitantly hopeful that what he said might be true.

_So easily manipulated, these humans._

"Come with me, away from all this…" He waved airily at the building behind him, where the sounds of glass smashing and furniture breaking rose in chaotic disharmony amid the terrified screams and hoarse yells of pain and fright. An alarm sounded as the first columns of thick smoke rose, the flames creeping up to eventually engulf the entire building.

He held out his manicured claws, his eyes caressing her, his voice plaintive. "I want to save you, little rabbit. You--affect me, like no one ever has. You don't deserve to see any of this destruction--which was necessary, for the peace of Kyoto. You understand the necessity, don't you? It was a den of vice and vile menace and had to be forcefully shut down. I want to save you, _ma petite belle. _Won't you--let me?"

Still biting her lip, her mascara-run eyes wide and haunted, she hesitantly slid her small hand into the warmth of his outstretched palm. With a warm, reassuring smile, Naraku graciously allowed her to enter the wide seat of the stretched limo before him, even daring to kiss the back of her hand as he settled beside her and the door was closed behind them.

She giggled, a nervous, high giggle that got on his nerves. Still keeping his smile in place, he flipped open the stocked beverage bar as the car smoothly pulled away from the curb. The girl stiffened, her fingers clutching the tanned leather seat on either side of her thin frame as the car turned sharply left, speeding away from the chaos left behind.

**Slow down**

**Hey the night could be gone tomorrow,**

**So I speed through life like there's no tomorrow, **_**(Speeding!)**_**  
Hundred G's worth of ice on the auto, **_**(Flossing!)**_**  
And we in the street life until they call the law. **_**(Balling!)**_**  
I made the whip get naked **_**(What happened?)**_**  
While I switch gears, bitch looking at the bracelet. **_**(Got 'em!)**_**  
**

"Champagne?"

She met his warm red eyes with doubtful wonder, her fingers clutching the thin stem of her fine glass as he toasted her with his and she gulped down the rather pricey vintage with no regard for its subtle potency.

She was staring at him in blue-eyed vacuity by the third bottle. By the fourth, he was able to taste the fine liquor on her sweet lips. By the sixth, he had persuaded her to do more. She was shameless, the darling little hussy, and greedily shared the snuff of expensive white street-sugar he gave her for dessert.

He was able to use her in delightful ways by the eighth bottle. The limo kept rolling, the music bumping as he used her harshly and she screamed, the pain as he deliberately hurt her snapping through the haze of PCP and marijuana. The cocaine finally took effect to heighten her awareness of every tiny scratch he made across her tender skin, which tore so easily under the merest flick of his caressing claws.

Her screams rose with the music and the foam of spilled champagne as she desperately tried to fight him, her sobs and terror and pain so brightly burning within him he could not help himself, so immersed was he in all the delightful beauty of it. She was eventually reduced to a hoarse, pleading litany for him to just kill her.

_"Please, just let me die, oh gods, please, just let me die…"_

Displeased with this new spectacle she had made of herself, he abruptly decided he was done with it. Carving a bloody bracelet deep into her wrist with the broken stem of her own goblet, he sat back at his leisure, a glass of champagne in hand as he watched her watch her own death spurting across her opened palm. The last, weak screams of utter horror were so sweet to his ears he had to close his eyes and savor the sound as he sipped the delicious vintage from his full glass.

How wonderful it all was.

**Step out, show me what you're all about--  
Flashbacks of last night of me balling out. **_**(Harlem!)  
**_**One A.M.--we was at the club. **_**(What happened?)**_**  
Two A.M.--ten bottles of bub. **_**(Money ain't a thing.)**_**  
And about three something I was thinking about grub,  
So I stumbled to the car through the drinks and the drugs. **_**(Twisted!)**_**  
**

He awoke with a faint headache. Frowning, he tried to remember just how he had gotten to his own bed, and finally dismissed the minor mystery with a shrug of his shapely shoulders. Pushing back the silken sheets, his idle thoughts turned to breakfast, and why it was not already here, in his rooms, when he had just awakened. He did not like to be kept waiting.

The paneled door opened and there she was, with tray in hand.

"Kagura," he drawled her name out like a caress. Her beautiful face was completely composed, her discreet ensemble of prim blue suit and low heels impeccably neat and in good taste, not one black hair of her upswept chignon out of place. He could never find fault with her, though he often tried, and dared not trust her.

"Good morning, Mr. President." She laid the tray on the gleaming mahogany table beside his drapery-hung bed. She ignored his nakedness as she ignored everything but her duties as his personal assistant.

"Would you mind fetching me my black robe?" he asked her, lazily drawing out the words to see if he would get a reaction.

There wasn't any, of course, and so he grabbed the offered silk robe from her hands with an irritated scowl. Shrugging his way into the embroidered black silk, he waved at her to start reciting his schedule for the day as he picked up the coffee--black, and bitter, as he liked it--from the silver tray. He finally belted the robe closed after savoring the first sip and half-listened as the wind youkai's inflectionless, soft voice droned on.

"Stop--I have a meeting with _who_ at ten?" His voice was harsh as he barked out that question.

Kagura, used to the hanyou's abrupt interruptions, continued smoothly, "Higurashi Kikyou. She is a miko of some renown, my lord."

He shot her a glare, his red eyes measuring the serene expression on her blank face. "I know who Kikyou Higurashi is."

"Of course, sir." Kagura bowed, her form correct to the last detail.

"Of course." He moved to the ornately-carved desk beyond her. Pulling a cigarette from the smart silver case on top of the desk, he took his time lighting it. Inhaling deeply of the ganja-spiced tobacco, he dropped the match on the expensive Aubusson carpet with casual disdain, grinding it out under his bare heel without flinching.

Still no reaction from the impassive wind youkai, and so he turned to stare into the cherub-flanked mirror above the desk, inhaling deeply and allowing the cloud of spicy smoke to swirl around him in ghostly, maddened wraiths.

**  
**_**We fly high, no lie, you know this. (Balling!)  
Foreign rides, outside, it's like showbiz.  
We stay fly, no lie, and you know this. (Balling!)  
Hips and thighs, oh my, stay focused.  
**_

Kikyou.

It wasn't that old dried up stick of a useless miko he wanted. It was her cousin.

_Kagome._

Even thinking of that delicious little inky-haired angel with the meltingly innocent blue eyes had his dick hard in seconds.

How irritating.

Parting his robes, he watched to see if he got any reaction from the wind youkai still watching him in the mirror.

Was that--_distaste_--in her steady red gaze?

With a slight, obnoxious smile, his eyes glowing a bit at the pure naughtiness of it, he pushed aside the loosened robe. He watched the wind youkai watching him, and noted how her prim mouth thinned just that little bit, how her nostrils flared as if with disgust and her bloody eyes unfocused as if she would pretend not see what he was doing so blatantly before her.

"Watch me," he ordered, certain she would, because she could do nothing _but_ obey. He held her heart in his claws, did he not? Her younger sister, Kanna, the idiot youkai of the void, forever childlike because she had the adult brains of a five-year-old moron. Emotionless little brat, white and skinny and far too runtish for his taste, though he had tried her out, just to see.

Not that the wind bitch knew that particular fact. She might just try and claw him to death in a hot youkai rage over the liberties he had taken with her defenseless little sister, safely imprisoned within this very house where he could rub it in the wind youkai's face. He would have to kill her then, and he found her too useful--and too amusing--to do that just yet.

Someday, though, the wind bitch would grow tiresome, or she would do something stupid, like betray him, or something even stupider, like try and free her little sister, and then he would have no choice but to kill her--pleasant as that thought was.

He thought of his unwilling watcher, and then of the girl, Kagome, who had escaped his claws--for now--but would be his, eventually, to do with as he pleased, and it was _that_ thought that had him closing his red eyes in satisfaction.

Lifting the still-burning ganja to his lips, he slowly opened his glowing eyes as he inhaled deeply. The wind youkai stared at him, her face expressionless once more. He glared at her through the mirror, but not a single muscle moved. She might as well have been a living statue, the irritating bitch.

Stabbing the spent cigarette into his dark coffee, Naraku scowled.

"Leave me," he ordered abruptly, and the irritating bitch finally went, leaving him alone in the heavy silence of his bedroom suite. Shrugging out of the dirty black silk, Naraku stalked over to the opulent bathing room.

**  
Man, could you buy that?  
I keep twenty in the pocket, **_**(Light change.)**_**  
Talk about eighty if the Bentley is the topic. **_**(That Grey Poupon?)**_**  
But, of course, we gotta fly-- **_**(Where?)**_**  
To the hood to roll dice on the side of the curb.  
But I know a G Bent might sound absurd… **_**(Get your money up!)**_**  
Drive eighty up Lennox 'cause I got a urge. **_**(Speeding!)**_**  
**

_That disgusting, filthy, perverted, half-bred youkai bastard!_

Kagura seethed as she stalked from the hanyou's rooms, her heels tap-tap-tapping on the echoingly marble floors of the palatial residence Onigumo Naraku had taken as his own after his bloodthirsty youkai mobs had destroyed the old ningen family in one single bloody night of Reparation, as the self-styled "President of Kyoto" called it.

_Bloody massacre, was what it was!_

In one single night, the youkai denizens of Kyoto City had risen up to destroy their long-time ningen oppressors in a riot of bloody vengeance, killing anyone who dared cross their roving path as they summarily dealt justice--and death--by the simple expedience of their mob-frenzied rage. "Reparation" is what Naraku, rising out of the aches of the crippling riots he himself had incited, had called it. Reparation for past crimes against the youkai good--bloody debts that had long stood due at cowardly, weak, variously human hands, who had long ruled over their second class youkai citizens, sneering down their blunt noses at the 'lesser demons.'

There had been just enough truth in Naraku's stirring words to cause a grain of discontent to form within the hearts of the poorer youkai of the city. It was true that ningen families had always ruled in Kyoto City, true that humans had always been given the favor of any ready job, resource, living space or dispute, true that humans had often looked down on the lesser denizens of the city, true that it had only been a scant fifty years since youkai had been finally freed from the yoke of impractical slavery and yet still bore the stamp of human scorn and racial prejudice.

_They still didn't deserve to be murdered in their beds!_

Youkai had basically put themselves on a base human's level. It was--distressing. There had been those fighting for youkai rights, youkai liberty and youkai welfare, in the right way, in the courts and on the streets, imploring citizens to open their hearts to embrace all the diverse specie within the walls of the ancient city.

_For the little good it did._

Kagura knew first-hand how despised youkai were. Had her own half-sister Kanna not been summarily ousted from every respectable institution that might have been able to help her in some way, and just because some ningen had need of the limited bed-space? Poor, innocent Kanna, she had been vaguely hurt and anxious to find herself arbitrarily dismissed from each of her 'homes', so that more affluent human patients could be given preference.

Kagura had struggled to support them both on a limited salary while going to law school at night. She felt the injustices heaped on her kind keenly, and knew that she wanted to fight it--the right way, through the law, which held no personal grudge, just truth.

She had all but jumped at the chance to make a little extra money fixing the books of a small, affluent pawn-shop on the lower east side. She had had a few pangs in breaking the very laws she wanted to uphold, but the pinched, anxious expression in Kanna's black eyes had hurt her more, and so she had taken what she had considered to be a simple, one-time-only job.

Only to be drawn more deeply into the darker activities of the Onigumo crime family. Fixing the books came first, and then that little carry-this-sack mule job to the upper west side, then that stint as a working dealer, hoping to earn the money to pay back the loans she borrowed for Kanna's latest surgeries.

She had been drawn deeper and deeper into the unbreakable net of money and scandal, until she now found herself serving that disgustingly little jumped up street-thug as his personal assistant--the title a mere prop for the bastard's ego, which was ginormous and--like his ambition--knew no bounds.

She didn't try to hide her loathing, and Naraku never hid the fact that he rather enjoyed it. He had taken her sister as hostage for her good behavior, because she knew too much and he enjoyed playing with her emotions and hatred--the sick fuck.

Now, Kagura was virtually his slave, to do with as he pleased.

Her fists curled at her side, the painted nails digging into her palms as the ever-biting anger and frustration nipped at her soul. Keeping her face expressionless, her balled fists hidden by the flared jacket of her smartly tailored suit, Kagura could only cling to one thought--that the hanyou might think he had her to heel, but she would one day bite the hand that fed her, and serve that foul bastard up some of his own shit.

_If Naraku ever finds out what I am doing, he would kill me right then, no questions asked._

Hell, one day he would kill her anyway, in a pique or in a mood, or in one of those mad rages he was so fond of falling into. It was better this way, to go down fighting, if only secretly. She knew people, had contacts with the growing underground movement known as the Silent Brotherhood, made up of those who detested the dictatorial rule of a half-youkai crime boss.

_One day, we'll get him--_

"Kagura!"

Her head shot up, and she stifled the uneasy surprise that flickered through her red eyes as she turned to face the massive hulk of a youkai brute striding toward her down the marbled hall. Goshinki was a hideously deformed youkai, his horns twisting above the pearlescent mane that covered his ugly, purple face. There were rumors that the youkai could read minds, with enough instances that Kagura carefully shielded her traitorous thoughts, deliberately thinking of nothing but counting repetitive numbers.

_One-hundred-one, one-hundred-two, one-hundred--_

The purple monster scowled down at her, hefting a bulging brace of dusty files from under his arm and negligently tossing them on the marble-tiled floor at her feet.

"Naraku wants you to take this shit to old Myouga."

_One-hundred-six, one--_

"The historian?" Kagura was surprised enough to cough as the youkai's flat eyes flickered.

"Yep." Goshinki wasn't forthcoming with anything else, and Kagura met his penetrating gaze with one of her own.

_One-hundred-seven. One-hundred-eight…_

"Hmph." Turning smartly--and far too gracefully for such a large, bulky frame--Goshinki finally sauntered off, looking for other, more stupid, prey.

Kagura watched him go with some relief. Stooping down to gather the disheveled files up, she stared at the papers that spilled out. _The Shikon no Tama? What's that?_

There was no answers given, at least in the quick scan she gave the exposed page of dusty, archaic writing. Just a meager reference to some youkai bauble supposed to grant wishes, like Aladdin's lamp. How--silly. It was totally unlike the wily hanyou to be interested in such nonsense. Interested enough that he would seek out the crusty old mutterings of a minor flea demon, and send his personal assistant to return them, so important they were…

Holding the files to her chest, Kagura hurried her steps. If she used the Bentley, and she hurried, she just might be able to take a little, unnoticed side-trip along the way to go seek out some of her _friends_ to let them know just what the dark hanyou might be up to. They might even know what the stupid 'Jewel of Four Souls' was--or would mean to the dark hanyou, and why he suddenly seemed so taken with finding the damn thing.

**The rap game like the crack game--  
Lifestyles, rich and famous, living in the fast lane. **_**(Balling!)**_**  
So when I bleep, shorty, bleep back,  
Louis Vuitton belt where I keeping all the heat strapped.  
I beat the trial over Rutger, **_**(Let's do it!)  
**_**All guns loaded--in the back, motherfucker! **_**(Dipset!)  
**_

"But, Mr. Onigumo, sir--"

Naraku negligently waved at his bodyguards to take the babbling Minister of Public Welfare out of his official Presidential Office. They did, with as much aplomb as they always had--by snatching the poor youkai up by the back of his collar and force-marching him out the door. The Minister's pale face turned purple with outrage, but there was nothing he could do but march along, his dignity forsaken the day he decided to apply for the job.

Months before Naraku might have chided his 'staff' for treating an appointed Minister so roughly--but that was when he actually gave a shit what the stupid ministers thought, back when he was trying to pretend that he was a snobby little politician. Now, he didn't bother. They could fit in with what and who _he_ was--top dog.

Politics was much like the street--hard, cut-throat, and the biggest front with the biggest gun and the shit to back it up always on top. Naraku had once been a low-ball dirty hustler on the back streets of Kyoto City, but he had watched and he had learned, and now he owned this city--lock, stock, and building.

The door cracked open, and one of his lounging guards pulled out a gun as an earnest, young page scuttled inside. The youkai visibly swallowed, trying to ignore the grinning guard, who started spit-cleaning his weapon with casual disregard for the younger youkai's nervous agitation.

"Uh…Mr. President?"

The shit never stopped. Naraku sighed, feeling irritated with all of it, and leaned back in his heavily padded leather chair. Where was Kagura, anyway? She should have been here to ward off such stupid nonsense.

_That's right. I sent her off after Myouga._

The thought was slightly encouraging. That skanky old flea might have found some valid information concerning the Jewel. It might even prove helpful.

Mood improved a bit, Naraku decided to humor the poor youkai, whose agitated heartbeat and restless stirring was making his jaw clench. "What?"

"Uh, sir, there is another minister waiting to see you." The page was acting as his butler, or whatever, in Kagura's absence. Naraku actually missed the bitch--there would have been no twitching out of her, no matter how much his guards tried to intimidate her.

She would have also gotten right to the point a whole hell of a lot sooner. Frowning at the stupid whelp, Naraku bit out, "Who?"

The youkai jumped, his eyes still on Goshinki's gun, which the purple brute was now carefully putting bullets in. "Uh…sorry, sir. It's Honoka-san, the Minister of Finance."

"Ah, yes. Honoka." Naraku leaned forward, elbows on his desk as he steepled his fingers together in front of him, his posture all too casual for the darkening glint in his narrowed red eyes. He glanced over at Goshinki, who had stiffened at the Finance Minister's name.

"Was that today?" Naraku asked, mildly ironic.

"Yes, sir," Goshinki nodded, his flat, cold eyes gleaming faintly.

"Hmm. I forgot." Naraku drummed his fingers on the top of his gleaming desk, thinking. "What time is it?"

"Almost ten, sir," Goshinki supplied as the page's eyes darted from one to the other, uncertain of the private joke that had the purple bully smiling slightly.

It wasn't a nice smile.

"Don't I have a meeting scheduled with that miko--Kiki-something--at ten?" Naraku asked, knowing the cold stick's name but more amused to pretend he didn't.

"Yes, sir--Mr. President, sir," the page stuttered, still baffled by the silent game the two youkai played in front of him.

"How--inconvenient." Naraku looked truly disappointed, though his red eyes glinted as Goshinki's smile widened, showing a row of brilliant fangs. There were rumors that the president's chief bully-boy and house-thug used Vaseline to give him that Crest-worthy smile.

"Goshinki, I fear you will have to meet with the treacherous Mr. Honoka all by your lonesome. Do you feel competent enough to handle the job?" Naraku's rather mild, chatty tone warned the brute that he'd better not fuck it up.

"Of course, boss--er--Mr. President." Goshinki bowed, that awful smile growing bigger.

"See to it, then." Naraku waved the ugly man out. Goshinki did as he was told, hauling the yelping page after him by grabbing the youth by one arm and hurrying him along. Naraku waited for the paneled doors to slam closed behind the unlikely pair before opening the shallow drawer on his right. The desk was a massive affair, carved out of black mahogany with inlaid ivory embossed along its edges. He had had the thing moved in here from his own private offices, after having the old President's desk, which had been embossed with the city's seal, burned. He refused to use what a vile ningen fool had ever used. It was a new regime, _his_ regime, and it was something they--the stuffy politicians, the bankers and the lawyers and the good youkai of the city--should never forget.

Like he would ever let them.

Pulling out the silver-plated little derringer, Naraku took his time polishing the sweet little piece. It was a lady's gun, and the decorative swirls on the silver surface were shaped into fanciful flowers and ivy. Sweet, that.

Fitting bullets into the chamber, Naraku put the little gun in his pocket. Drawing another, larger weapon from the same drawer, he cocked the safety back, checking the chamber. This one was hardly as elegant as the other, but it was better for distance and accuracy. Satisfied it, too, was primed and ready, the hanyou casually slipped it underneath his fitted Armani jacket, in the waistband of his matching pants.

Snapping his fingers, one of his ever-present bodyguards darted forward with a small, velvet case. Opening the box, Naraku took his time pulling out a silver-backed mirror and its matching Tiffany brush. Checking his profile in the mirror's surface, he smoothed one black brow with a damp finger. Satisfied that he looked the part of world-class schmooze and presidential incumbent, he finally looked up.

"I think I might take a stroll in the Presidential gardens. The miko might feel more at home among the weeds, don't you think?" His sarcastic sally was met with toothy grins from the five youkai lounging around the luxuriously-appointed office. As he pushed back his seat and stood up, his soldiers came smartly to attention. One darted forward to open the door for him with a bow made silly by the man's ugly, lime-green mohawk.

Disgusted, for it irritated the dark hanyou no end that his men could still look like the gangsters and street toughs they had once been, he snarled, "Shave that shit off, Rensa."

"Y-Yes, boss--Mr. President," Rensa gulped, bowing again. Idiot.

Sweeping from the room, Naraku led his nervy entourage through the expansive halls of the presidential palace, certain that the miko would be waiting for him exactly where he wanted her to, and wondering why it was she had come, the cold little bitch.

**  
**_**We fly high, no lie, you know this. (Balling!)  
Foreign rides, outside, it's like showbiz.  
We fly high, no lie, you know this.**_

_**Foreign rides, outside, it's like showbiz. (Balling!)**_

_**We stay fly, (Fly!) no lie, (No Lie!) you know this. (Balling!)  
Hips and thighs, oh my, stay focused.  
**_

She was waiting for him, her serene expression calculated to get under his skin. He wondered what that pale, skinny face would look like with a bullet hole right in the middle of those elegantly arched brows.

Amused, he waved at his men to spread themselves out and around the perimeter of the small, inner garden. A fountain tickled tranquilly in the middle of a stone patio, fancifully-carved benches placed here and there for privacy or ease. The miko, robed in the traditional red and white of her calling, stood to one side, her hands hidden in her long sleeves as she regarded him with a tranquil expression.

"My dear, Kikyou," Naraku smiled, his red eyes gleaming. "This is certainly a surprise."

"Is it?" She asked, her tone icily sarcastic.

"Shouldn't it be?" He almost purred as he stepped closer to her. "I would think that a miko of your insignificance would hardly have anything to see me about, youkai that I am."

"Youkai?" Her smile was slight, mocking. "Isn't 'hanyou' more appropriate?"

His eyes narrowed dangerously as his claws flexed, itching to wrap themselves around her white throat. Damn stick.

"Have you seen your cousin Kagome lately? I heard that her spiritual potential has far outstripped your own, though I wonder why it was she was never trained as you were. I would think that the head priestess of Kyoto would ensure her own family, at least, would receive the proper safeguards in training her holy powers. An untrained miko can be dangerously unstable--any rogue bastard with ill intentions could use that raw power for their own benefit. Such a dangerously delightful tool, don't you think?" His voice dropped to a velvety whisper as the miko went rigid with icy anger.

"Perhaps it was jealousy that drove her closest family to desert her and leave the poor defenseless innocent untrained. Isn't it true that your cousin's potential far outstrips your own meager powers, dear Kikyo? And isn't it true that your rank as lead priestess would be in dispute if one of such ability chose to argue it?" Naraku smiled silkily as the priestess's emotionless mask cracked just a little to show the hot rage that sparked in her dark eyes.

"I have done as much as I can for my cousin, but that is none of your concern, is it, Mr. President?" Kikyo hissed, eyes glittering.

"Of course not." Naraku smiled, his eyes just as hard.

One of his youkai shuffled their feet at the heavy tension that hung between the two of them, and the slight sound broke it. Naraku smiled slowly, his eyes glowing in slight amusement, feeling somehow as if he had won the silent battle between them. Leisurely strolling over to the nearest bench, he settled himself with languid grace. Staring at his carefully manicured claws, he asked, "Why are you here, miko? What is it you want?"

"Want?" The cold stick seemed suddenly amused. "What I want, Naraku, you could never provide."

"Really? How utterly disappointing," Naraku sneered, his red eyes narrowing. Abruptly tiring of the stupid game, he placed his palms flat on his bent knees and leaned forward. "Tell me, miko, what the fuck do you want? What brings you here, of all places, where you are so unwelcome?"

An elegant brow rose. The cold stick regarded him with a faint smile, her dark eyes fathomless. "The Shikon no Tama."

Hiding his surprise, Naraku regarded the pale miko under lowered lids. Lounging back with insincere nonchalance, he said drolly, "Perhaps we do have something to talk about. Please, sit, Miss Higurashi, and tell me more…"

**You mens need to stay focused,  
When you dealing with a mother-fucking G!  
You know my name--Jones, One Eye, Capo Status.  
Only above motherfucker,  
This Dipset ByrdGang we born to fly!**

**Y'all know the rules, fall back or fall back.  
Someone tell my bitch, I'm looking for her.  
Ya dig? Another day, another dollar.  
Fast life fucker.**


End file.
